Sathyan Anthikkad is one of those senior directors of Malayalam cinema who is still pretty much active in the industry, coming up with a film every year. His films are known for their humor based screenplays, situational comedies, stories of common man, good music and clean dialogues without any sexual innuendos or double meaning dialogues. All these factors have garnered him the title Family Director as family audience can vouch for his films, without any second thought. He is one of those rare filmmakers who has made successful films with the Superstars as well as the young stars, only Prithviraj being an exception. So when Sathyan Anthikkad announced a movie with Dulquer Salman in the lead, expectations were sky high — for various reasons. This is a first time collaboration with Mammooty's son who has preferred urban based stories and characters mainly in his career so far. Also Dulquer is on a winning streak with 3 continuous box office hits -Charlie, Kali and Kammattipaadam. With a minimum guarantee director and the most popular youth star coming together, we can expect nothing but a blockbuster in the making. Jomonte Suvisheshangal tells the tale of a highly successful businessman, Vincent, played by Mukesh and his prodigal son Jomon played by Dulquer. Jomon, the third child of Vincent is a carefree, happy go lucky guy who is aimless, irresponsible and passes time spending his father's hard earned money recklessly, while all his siblings and in laws are well settled. The story takes a turn when Vincent, who considers money making an art, makes a wrong business decision, thereby losing all his wealth and assets. How this event transforms Jomon and makes him responsible forms the rest of the story. The story line is simple, predictable and very familiar to Malayalam audience through the director's own Veendum Chila Veettukarayangal and last year's box office hit, Jacobinte Swargarajyam. With a very familiar story line, predictable and obvious climax what keeps the audience engaged in this film which runs for 150+ minutes is the earnest performances by Mukesh and Dulquer. Mukesh gets one of the best characters of his career through Vincent and he is also a hero of the film. The first half sequences is rich in situational comedies with Innocent and Sivaji Guruvayoor while the actor excels in the emotional sequences with Dulquer in the latter half. Dulquer plays it safe here — a role which offers no challenge to him yet he puts in effort to make it different. His comic timings are also improving. Sivaji Guruvayoor once again proves with his matured performance that the character role artists of Malayalam cinema shall not be forgotten. Innocent shines in a few comedy sequences, but the character is shallow. Among the heroines, Anupama Parameswaran has nothing to do, but a song sequence while Aishwarya Rajesh's innocent face was cute. This is her debut film, also for Tamil actor Manobala. Gregory Jacob as Jomon's sidekick Mushtaq provides a few laughs but I fear he is getting type casted with the same expressions and dialogue delivery. Dr. Iqbal Kuttipuram has a list of some good films to his credit — Niram, Arabikatha, Diamond Necklace, Oru Indian Pranayakatha and Vikramadityan to name a few. The writing is good but a bit stretched and certain moments like Jomon kissing his dad and saying I still love you to distract him whenever he lands in trouble and the moment of the film in the second half where Vincent throws away a pack of his favorite 555 cigarettes saying he wants to see his son for many more years were really touching and heart warming. On the technical side, everything is as usual for a Sathyan Anthikkad film, which requires no special mentioning. One of the few things I noticed in the film is the absence of a strong female lead. Though there are many female characters with plenty of scope, none of them leaves a mark. Sathyan Anthikkad's usual gang of atrists — Mamukoya and KPAC Lalitha were also missing in this film. Even though the film has its drawbacks and its for sure that comparisons will be drawn with Jacobinte Swargarjyam and Veendum Chila veettukaryangal, the warmth and depth of the father son bond between Jomon and Vincent is a treat to watch and the realization that Vincent goes through towards the end of the film that money is not everything in life will be an eyeopener to at least a few among us. Go for it, you won't be disappointed.
