Sreebala K Menon's Love 24*7 is a half baked attempt at narrating two new-age love stories in the backdrop of the low brow corporate politics which is happening in a private news channel.To be very frank,Sreebala's debut movie is not a very bad one,considering it's helmed by a debutant director.But then,it's no great work of art either,which is a pity since the theme which the director had chosen for her first movie had far more potential than what it has eventually translated onto the screen.
Roopesh Nambiar(Dileep) is the star journalist of Naalamidam News Channel.Kabani 'Bonekkadu' Karthika joins there as a trainee journalist.Love blossoms between the two and how they manage to strike a balance between their personal and professional lives forms the main 'track' of the movie.There is also a parallel romantic track involving Roopesh's doctor friend Dr Sarayu(Suhasini Maniratnam) and Dr Satish (Sasikumar) which incidentally becomes one of the main weak links in the narrative. It's not only quite reminiscent of the Nedumudi Venu-Jayasudha track in the movie Íshtam(2001,Siby Malayil) but also far less effective/entertaining when compared to the latter.
The movie definitely has it's high points.The writer in Sreebala deserves a pat on her back for creating such lively characters like Ummerikka(the rebel-cum-corporate chanakya),Kabani(the new age woman who has experienced life,the hard way).There are also a couple of scenes which are hard hitting and quite effective.The most notable one being the scene in which the character played by Lena resigns from her job after a face-off with her new Boss (played by Shankar Ramakrishnan).Flashes of directorial brilliance is also quite evident in that particular scene where Roopesh gets into a heated argument with his Godfather and well-wisher Ummerikka(Sreenivasan) over the 'interview' which can potentially make or break the MD's political aspirations.Another thing which I liked about Sreebala's writing is her conscious decision to highlight the issues faced by women at corporate houses(there is a scene where Lena tells Kabani how the 'ínvisible ceiling' is preventing women from attaining further career progress)even without following that overtly 'feminist'/woman- centric approach.Both Dileep and Nikhila have performed well in their respective roles while Suhasini and Sasikumar are also quite good.But the one who walks away with the cup is Sreenivasan.As Ummerikka,the corporate chanakya,he just mesmerizes!
However, as a movie 'Love 24*7' never manage to rise beyond the average level.The reasons being the sloppy second half and the underwhelming romantic track between the elderly couple(I wish she had focussed more on the lead couple's relationship and their issues rather than giving preference to the cold 'Sarayu-Satish' saga).The supposedly hilarious sequences which comes in the first half (the news room sequences,the heroine's 'parassala' slang)fall flat and rarely manage to raise a chuckle.The climax is also a big let down and I still don't know why the director included that 'feel-good' tail-end portions after trying to do a 'Vandanam' in the climax!
Biji-Bal's songs are quite average and so is the editing.The movie requires urgent trimming,especially in the Suhasini-Sasikumar portion.
Verdict-On the whole,the movie is quite an average one.A decent DVD watch,at best.My rating-2.6/5
-nikhimenon
1 comments:
gud review
Post a Comment