Jithindurden

Surprisingly not as great as I remember but still a pretty great film. I think the new generation knows more about this film from memes and references and may even know the basic story of this movie rather than what it is actually based on. In the original Vadakkan Pattukal, those folktales depicted Chandu as the treacherous villain. Everyone knows this is a reimagining of the character being a good guy who gets framed as a traitor due to various circumstances. But the details of how and why it happens, and the various decisions Chandu makes in this film feel a bit pathetic now. Also, a lot of it feels not fully explored or shown a bit over the top and dated, which can be explained away since we are listening to Chandu narrating his own story. But this really needs that lens of a villain's story turned into a tragic hero to fully enjoy, because otherwise,e the decisions of the character feel a bit pathetic being a loser in all facets of life despite being very talented and just keep getting put down and blaming all of it on women, etc.

Nonetheless, it's still a really great movie that tried something different on such an epic scale. The remastering is inconsistent with the visual quality but a very large part of it was greatly done and the grandness of elaborate sets and huge number of extras and costumes did look fantastic on the big screen. The Atmos conversion was also pretty good and quite better than some other recent remastered releases.

Nothing in Malayalam cinema feels anywhere near as epic as this nowadays. The song Unniganapathi showing the childhood rituals, then after growing up, then the Kalari exhibition fights where there is no dialogue for around 20 minutes, etc are so well crafted. There are no slow-motion or shabby vfx shots to distract you from the epicness and the intensity that is going on. All the songs were incredible and such classics but watching it on a big screen made it all the more special.

So convoluted without any point. I see that there were some ideas and themes which potentially could be interesting but why would they even go for something as convoluted in a Tubi movie where they'd know the end product wouldn't be that deep! That ending was stupid and added just for the sake of making this feel more edgy which I don't think worked because it's already edgy enough. Even with all that, I was fascinated with how they decided to make this movie like this, intentionally confusing which leads to a want for closure which I'm not sure they gave. It was weirdly entertaining because of how bad it was.

The grimness of some of these 70s films is quite different from that of modern ones. A lot of the 70s films that are a bit dark in nature make me empathize more with anyone who we don't see in the movie because we are horrified for them to be living along with these kinds of people rather than feeling anything for anyone in the film itself. That's not a bad thing per se, but a lot of times it tends to be boring. Here, they make it interesting more with the way this film is shot. The cinematography and editing really carry this movie. The tension of the jailbreak scene, in the beginning, was so well done with such minimal dialogues and full use of the props they had. Even though the story is lackluster and the antihero portrayal is dated, the craft in the filmmaking itself really makes this worthwhile. Ian McShane in the supporting role as a jolly conniving crook was pretty great and fits more into what psychopaths are according to modern studies rather than the gloomy depressed silent types the movies sell us.