Garudan

Garudan just about flies, failing to soar. The first half of the movie is quite good raising our hope but then the second half lets us down by poor writing. Weak storyline; they could have done a lot better if they had used more imagination, or put in more effort.

As far as acting is concerned, the main players are Sidhique and Biju who have done a good job while Suresh Gopi's was average.

The direction and screen play (with too many unnecessary scenes) are again average.

My main complaint is that the makers have tried to present a mystery but without following the ground rules of writing/making mystery stories/movies. A good mystery story teller has to follow the basic rule that you cannot hide anything from the reader/viewer! They don't have to elaborate or explain to the reader/viewer at each step of the way but they should take us along as they investigate and discover clues. The best movies/books are those where the viewer/reader gets all the information by the end of the movie along with the investigator thus giving us the chance to think, use our brains and make our own deductions. Finally when the investigator discloses the identity of the killer/criminal - we get the pleasure of having deduced correctly or at least the surprise, the thrill at how the investigator reached his conclusion; that's the thrill of reading/watching a mystery story.

And this is where this story fails. They dont tell us anything about the antagonist - his history or background or character. There is no indication as to what kind of a person he is; we dont even know if he had really commited the crime? And then suddenly in the last reel, the SP starts pulling out rabbits out of his hat, one after another - proving that he was right all along and that he had arrested the right person.

Nor do we feel any empathy or respect for the investigating SP; because again the writers have failed to build up his character. All we know is that he is Suresh Gopi - looking quite old. At the verge of retirement the court orders him to compensate the antagonist for wrongful investigation. He immediately becomes a drunkard and starts fighting with everyone around him - all in the name of investigation! But by then we are past caring for this character.

My rating is 5.