Grandmaster

After the box office dud The Thriller,B Unnikrishan is back with another police story with Mohanlal,with whom he made his first super hit Madambi back in 2007.This is not a regular police story with firebrand dialogues,3-5 fights and a lukewarm climax.Its a different flick by B Unnikrishnan avoiding the regular police movie Clichés.Finally we get a neat,twisted and Simple thriller that provides some genuine thrills.

The Story resembled the old Malayalam serial Black and white which was my favourite show at that time.Mohanlal plays I.G Chandrasekhar,the head of Metro crime stopper squad who lost his interest in work after his divorce.When Jereme(Riyaz khan) kidnaps 3 girls,He returns with a bang to stop injustice.Later ,Chandrasekhar receives a letter by a mysterious person stating that he wants to play a game.Hence,The movie is a battle of wits between the mysterious killer and Chandrasekhar.Helping him in this task are Kishor(Narein) and Rishi(Jagathy) and his ex-wife Deepthi(Priyamani).The killer kills his victims in the alphabetical order.Who is the Killer, what is his motive and how Chandrashekhar nabs him forms the story of Grandmaster.

Mohanlal puts up an energetic performance which was missing in his last few films.He shines as Chandrashekar who is in the trail of the serial killer.His dialogue delivery and fight scenes were excellent.He doesn't have much long essay dialogues and war of words with his superiors like the regular police stories which is a disappointment for Lal fans.Its a relief for me though.His super cool performance makes the other actors just spectators and it works well for the film too.Narein was decent as the sidekick and Jagathy too did well.Priyamani had an important role as Chandrasekhar's ex-wife and did it without much flaws.Siddhique was cool in a brief role.Roma,Anoop Menon,Babu Antony,Riyaz Khan did their parts comfortably.Others were good.

B Unnikrishnan hit the mark with this one.Great takings, good screenplay,crisp dialogues and good direction that makes the movie engaging till the end.The suspense was good and not predictable as the plot is twisty at times and it was completely different from what I expected.So to say,He was one step ahead of the audience's minds which was not expected,at least by me.He deserves much of the credit for this neat thriller but I felt the movie dragged in the first half.Still this one remains as one of his best works but for me Tiger is way ahead.Though it was directed by Shaji Kailas,it was written by B Unnikrishnan.The Chess playing scenes between hero and the mysterious villain which was repeated many times in the movie was interesting and caught my attention Songs were a big let down considering the music director was Deepak Dev.The first song Akale was better than the rest.BGM was good at times.The running time of the movie could have been cut short.a bit.

All together,Grandmaster lies entirely on Mohanlal.Watch it for the maestro's cool performance and the movie also provides some much required thrills and suspense.The climax gets us by surprise with an unexpected villain.The movie ends up as a decent thriller.In the box office,Film will have a tough time competing with super hits like Mayamohini ,ordinary and all but I hope this one ends up as a winner.

3.5/5 - Good Watch!

Mohanlal's early 90's whodunit "Mukham' directed by Mohan is one of my favorite movies, so is Mohan's "Pakshe". "Mukham" if I remember correctly was a flop, but nuances of the movie keep growing on you on repeated viewing. Though reception of the movie was lilliputian compared to K.Madhu's "CBI diary kurippu", "Mukham" trumps the Mammootty flick by tactfully meshing the two quintessential parts of a whodunit - the crime, and the mind of the investigating officer. B.Unnikrishnan's "Grand Master" does just that, and is a movie worthy of repeated viewing.

When Mohanlal finds a character that resonates with the actor that he is, he delivers sheer onscreen magic. While "Grand Master" doesn't compare to lets say "Bhramaram" (which I think is Mohanlal's role of the decade), there is a sense of calm and ease with which the actor fits into the character of Chandrashekar. Mohanlal plays his age and his physical form, and is completely at ease as he carries the movie. Anoop Menon, Priyamani, Jagathy, and Narain support well, but this is a Mohanlal movie. It's one of those movies like "Udhayananu Tharam" where after the intro scene you forget you are watching a Mohanlal movie. A well played performance which constantly dodges our attempts at getting into the head of Chandra to figure out how he is going to crack the case.

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Looking at the big picture, it's a fine movie with a surprising climax at the end. But the movie was just ordinary. B Unnikrishnan had wonderful script and just directed the movie plainly as you would direct any movie. I didn't felt that adrenaline pumping effect on me. The soundtracks was exceptionally good especially the background scores, best for malayalam movies. Kinda sounds like its Hans Zimmer. And at last the villain after being caught comes up and confess all the process.. OMG.. can't we live out of this total concept of confess.. gross!! I'm sick of it. He should have tried something else to reveal the things, not this one. There are a lot better crime thrillers from Malayalam movies. And I don't think grandmaster is one among them standing tall my ratings 6/10 for ordinary direction

In one word, a good movie with a good script flavoured by excellent direction by Unnikrishnan and class performance of the great actor Mohanlal.

The movie starts simply and had a simple intro of IG Chandrasekhar. Film takes the track without any lagging and parallelly shows the family background of Chandrasekhar. Unni did the mixing of both well, which satisfies all kind of the viewers.

Looking to the performance, Lalettan was superb as IG Chandrasekhar. Amazing performance by him. Priyamani was good as Adv.Deepthi Chandrasekhar. Narien, Jagathy, Anoop Menon,Babu Antony etc. were good.

B.Unnikrishnan,the craftsman of GrandMaster is deserved to be praised. Good scripting and excellent way of execution. Surely his career best till date. Script shows Unnikrishnan's large habit of reading. Good standard in dialogues and way of presentation. Hats off.

Music department was good. Especially the 'Akalayo ne' song. Also the BGM was good.

Cinematography was an apt one for a movie like this. Good work.

A serial kills women in alphabhetical order and a police go after him... There is no unique way in story and screenplay just an ordinary serial killer movie nothing more than that... Climax has twist but not surprising.. All I can say that this is a one time watchable movie...!!!