Shylock

A One time watchable nbelow average movie which director made only for mammookka fans. Okayish first half with poor second half and cliche revenge story which makes this utter scrap.mammooka have to avoid these kind of roles. Waste of Both Money & Time. 👎

It is an average movie with all masala. Just see it to pass time if you have no other choice.

It's a known fact that the younger crop (of Malayalam film actors) still struggles to deliver solid masala flicks like in the 90s. This, of course, is enough reason for the two big Ms of Malayalam to continue to churn out lazily written, hazily executed trash like Shylock. Everything in the movie reeks of unoriginality. The treatment by Ajai Vasudev is stale (it was already evident in his previous two ventures), and there's basically nothing in Shylock worth recommending.

The ridiculously clichéd revenge plot, the superficial action set-pieces, the irritating background score, the self-referential and borrowed (from other blockbusters) humour, the abundance of sunglasses, an unnecessary item number, lack of solid supporting characters and/or antagonists - Shylock suffers from all of it. The nicest thing about it is probably the absence of a romance track for 68-year-old Mammootty.

Verdict: Don't bother!

Well, Shylock isn't exactly the film that could garner praises throughout the movie critic community. I can understand why. All these 'reviews' is purely one dimensional. They really don't understand why these 'MASS' movies are being made, with a single 'star' in mind. Movies are not just limited to films that are excelling in technical aspects. Movies are also made for a particular demographic. And if you didn't like a film just for namesake, it's better if you don't critic it as well.

Shylock is an all in out action film. They advertised it as an action film. They know WHY it's an action film. Because the film is basically a 2 hour tribute to Mammootty. For a guy who has a career spanning over several decades, a 2 hour tribute is more than deserving.

Mammootty. Holy shit, this man. He doesn't understand the process of ageing. You are supposed to weaken as you age. But in Shylock, he has channeled performances from films like Rajamanikyam and Black. If you need a single reason to watch this movie, watch it for Mammooka's performance. You could almost say that he was a one man show throughout the movie.

But Shylock isn't the perfect action movie. It compromises a lot, for a short runtime and of course to glorify the lead. It is not the film you should watch to have fun. It can be boring. But if you like Mammootty, you'll very much like it.

Although I watched Big Brother on its release date last week, it was too soul destroying of an experience to write a review on. The release of Shylock today fared no better, underscoring the lack of quality writing and a story backbone in Malayalam cinema's attempts at mass entertainers these days.

Shylock is just a mish-mash of classic Tamil movie punch dialogues and slow motion sequences strung together with not even a single attempt by the director to form characters, back stories or genuine plot points.

Directors have to stop banking on just the superstar persona of Malayalam's two era-defining megastars and write characters and scripts that play to their acting strengths.

Awaiting Sachy's Ayyappanum Koshiyum and hoping it will offer a much better filmgoing experience.