Yet another film filled with morally repugnant but ultimately good hearted Malayali characters.
Tamil Nadu (Nadodi Kattu, Mazhavil Kavadi etc) or Bombay (Aaryan, Shubha Yathra etc) used to be the preferred place for Malayali filmmakers of the 90s to let loose their goofy emigrant Malayali characters.
Ayaal Njanalla is set in arid Gujarat. So you have the golden hearted Malayali guy who is coveted by a Gujarati girl. There is his hard drinking mentor. The Malayali guy is facing severe financial predicaments. Yawn :) Vineeth Kumar, the director has a sterile imagination. There are no great comic moments. There are no moments that touch you. You go to the movie hall to watch a film like this. And the caramel pop corn could be the best part of your film going experience.
Consider a film like Nadodikattu. Just before leaving for Chennai, Mohanlal meets his mother. It is a heart rending scene that makes you gulp and feel bad. When he reaches Chennai, he faces off with a corrupt politician (played by Janardanan) who is trying to evict poor people from their homes so that he can hand over the land to builders. The director and the writer knew their milieu.
A film like Ayaal Njanalla has no such flourishes from the writer. Gujarat is portrayed as a place of song and dance and people playing Holi (like in your average Bollywood movie). A large part of this film is set in Gujarat simply for its strangeness and exotic value.
The second half of the film does offer a lot of scope for comedy. But the writing is uninspired. There are too many boring sentimental scenes. Oh and there is the token loud and gluttonous fat guy who makes you cringe. We are supposed to laugh at his bad manners and generally crude behavior. That's the best the writer could come up with.
Fahad Fazil is sincere as usual. It is a shame that he does not seem to be offered too many interesting roles. He is a much better actor than the likes of Nivin Pauly.
This is one of the most uninspired Malayalam movies that i've seen in ages. And that is some achievement.
