Before you decide to judge me for being so blunt, I'm truly turned off by the fact that this pathetic excuse of a screenplay (by Arun Gopy) was signed off by a producer (let alone Tomichan Mulakupadam of all people) to be made into a film. 'Irupathiyonnam Noottandu' (wow, what an innovative film title) doesn't belong to this century, not the previous one, or the ones preceding it. This is a flick that should have never been made. The storyline is terrible, the leads are miscast (Pranav Mohanlal cannot emote, Zaya David I'm sure can do better), the songs (by Gopi Sundar) pee breaks, and the stunts (by Peter Hein) tacky.
One cannot help but be devastated by the fact that despite having a brilliant crew and a not-too-bad cast at its disposal, 'Irupathiyonnam Nootandu' is unable to engage the audience. Even if I forget the sheer nonsense of a screenplay that Gopy himself has penned, this movie has barely any redeeming qualities. Pranav Mohanlal is an afterthought: he CANNOT, just CANNOT emote. The fact that he keeps mouthing dialogues made famous by his dad and even tries to walk sideways like him, simply makes him a bigger misfit.
The film starts off as if there's a revelation of a gangster-tale somewhere in store, but it veers into extremely familiar romance territory with absolutely no surprises. The first half is just a tourism advertisement for Goa. Pranav's character gives us extensive insight into the mortal remains of Francis Xavier and how the Dona Paula beach got its name. Goa has been captured well indeed, and I give credits to Abhinandan Ramanujam for that. But why the hell is the film pretending to be too many things at the same time? It wants to be a love story, an action thriller..a film about a woman who's trying to find herself and is unsure of whether she wants to become a nun or lead a regular life, a film about familial values, feminism and child abuse..a film about communism and communalism. However, it ends up being none!
It is clear that Gopy has no clue on how to write a script for actors in this era of Malayalam cinema and therefore, he 'uses' the one in hand to bore the audiences to death. While Pranav's 'Aadhi' wasn't a good film by any means, it at least knew how to play to the budding actor's strengths. Even with someone like Peter Hein at the helm of the action proceedings, the stunts appear ridiculous due to the trashy VFX involved (hint: the train fight sequence). The dialogues are unintentionally hilarious at times, and you'll notice a badly written scene every now and then.
The antagonist..Good Lord! This is the most one-note, exceptionally boring bad guy I've seen in mainstream Malayalam cinema in recent memory. He hams it up big time, making the second half louder and more exaggerated than the first. The guy who plays Pranav's sidekick deserves a kick in the groin. His one-liners are worse than what Vadivelu would churn out decades back. The only time I laughed was when Dharmajan mentioned the 'GPS chechi'.
Gokul Suresh, Manoj K Jayan, Siddique, and a host of other well-known actors are just there. Simply there. None of them have memorable scenes (or lines, for that matter). In fact, the existence of a movie such as 'Irupathiyonnam Noottandu' shouldn't be acknowledged. This is exactly the kind of film that Malayalam cinema doesn't require in 2019.
