For a long time I had been thinking: why can't Malayalam cinema be light-hearted and still qualitative? Why can't there be films that have peculiar subjects and then carve comedy out of those in the form of slapstick and tomfoolery? Why can't there be a spoof movie in Malayalam? And then I saw Janamaithri (People-Friendly) last night and I no longer have those thoughts. It is everything that I wanted Malayalam cinema to consider: pure slapstick that is as brilliant as any hard-themed film. The attention to detail and the level of buffer dubbing in John Manthrickal's directorial debut is unsurprisingly fantastic; I laughed out loud quite a few times whether it was where characters use a slang for the word 'excreta' or induce political and other current topics into their dialogues to tickle your bones. With complementing performances by Saiju Kurup (in one of his best and most funniest), Sabumon, and Indrans (and even by Vijay Babu who comes out as a nice addition to the comic cast lie-up), this satirical comedy about Kerala police's attempts to sanitize itself and put up a good show in front of the public gets much love from me. It's a very well-made film with a good closure and that is supposed to be watched with your entire family. It will make you laugh, I can guarantee that. TN.
