Gold Movie Review; Not a shining gold, disappointing flick by Alphonse Puthren.

Review for GOLD:

(REVIEW BY ARUNJYOTHI R) 

•Language: MALAYALAM  

•Duration: 165 Minutes. 

•Genre: Comedy Thriller. 

• POSITIVES: 

1: Performance of Prithviraj Sukumaran 

2: Background Score

3: Cinematography 

4: Color grading 

5: Some comedies 

• NEGATIVES:

1: Direction 

2: Story 

3: Screenplay 

4: Editing 

5: The duration of the film. 

6: Predictability 

7: Lagging 

•ONE WORD: Not a shining gold, disappointing flick by Alphonse Puthren.

•STORY IDEA: 

Joshi is the owner of a mobile shop called Smarties. He lives with his loving mother and leads a happy life. One fine morning his mother will wake him up to say that a strange pickup van has been packed in front of their gate. Joshi after checking will find out that it’s filled with speakers. He won’t be able to find drivers and will file a complaint at the police station. After the complaint also pick-up will be continued in front of his gate for a couple of days. Soon Joshi will come to know that they are not just speakers but pure gold bars. What will Joshi do with the gold bars, who had parked the pickup van in front of his gates, from where did this gold bar vehicle come? 

•ANALYSIS OF THE DIRECTION, STORY, SCREENPLAY AND DIALOGUES:

The film Gold is written and directed by Alphonse Puthren. The movie is produced by Listen Stephen and Supriya Menon. The movie comes under the production company of Prithviraj Productions and Magic Frames. The musical works for the film is composed by Rajesh Murugesan and the film is edited by the director Alphonse Puthren. SSI Productions handles the distribution in Tamil Nadu and Magic Frames does the distribution in Kerala. With a running time of 165.29 minutes, the film is currently in theatres with a censor certificate U. 

Alphonse Puthren’s earlier films like ‘Neram’ and ‘Premam’ had given me a different cinematic experience and it was because of the filmmaking. The premise of those two films was easily able to connect and how he treated the movie had given an unforgettable experience. And after 7 years Alphonse Puthren is back with another film and seeing the star cast and crew I was having high expectations and was excited to watch his third film ‘Gold’. But unfortunately, the movie was highly disappointing, it was boring and less exciting. I didn’t expect this from Alphonse Puthren, the making style was weak, the story was poor and the screenplay was like a half-baked cake. Overall the film Gold was testing my patience and the duration of sixty-five minutes was hard to tolerate. 

The story of this film does not have that much content for a feature film, it only contains the materials for a short film. A thirty-minute short film content was unnecessarily dragged out and was made into a tedious screenplay. The total script is a disaster, the screenplay was boring and the predictability was making the film less engaging. What is going to happen next is easily predictable so the scenes which were supposed to create an impact turned out as tragedies. In the film, Alphonse Puthren was trying to create a thrilling backdrop with an inflexible story but from the very beginning till the end I couldn’t get any kind of amusing moments. Watching Premam and Neram as an audience, I could easily relate to the premise of the story, but in Gold, I felt like the director was forcing us to see and believe everything he did.

The making methods of Alphonse Puthren in Neram and Premam were once again brought back for Gold, like a replica. The showing of ants, butterflies, sky, and trees was used in Premam and that same style can be seen in Gold. The thriller backdrop in Neram is like the hero trying to solve every trouble and how the story connects and how it ends were exciting to watch and this same making the style was taken up for Gold. So while watching the movie was not giving a compelling feel, and all those same making style patterns brought by Alphonse Puthren were giving me an unsettling mood. If he had brought a new making style the movie could have been better, but still, the outdated screenplay will stand as a villain. 

The editing done by Alphonse Puthren was also annoying, and the duration of the film was too much. While watching the film I felt like the movie was testing my patience, the factors to entertain were missing all over the film. If the film was shortened to nearly two hours it could have been at least watchable. The first half was too lengthy, it was filled with many unwanted scenes. The time Alphonse Puthren had taken to establish the story was making the viewing boring. The second half was also making me sick, especially the portions of Lalu Alex were irritating. The situations in the script and how they connect and finally after all the troubles and confusion how the story ends peacefully made me infuriated. Many characters were brought and none of the characters had proper depth. I am thinking on what basis Nayanthara prefers a weak role like this, as she was having less to perform and her character hasn’t made any kind of impression. Some of the scenes were also lacking logic, and continuity was also missing, the editing gimmicks of Alphonse Puthren had miserably failed this time. 

•PERFORMANCE OF ACTORS:

The movie has a huge star casting, Prithviraj Sukumaran and Nayanthara is the hero and heroine for the film. Deepti Sati, Ajmal Ameer, Chemban Vinod Jose, Baburaj, Shabareesh Varma, Krishna Sankar, Vinay Forrt, Roshan Mathew, Mallika Sukumaran, Lalu Alex, Jagadish, Saiju Kurup, Suresh Krishna, Shammi Thilakan, Abu Salim, Althaf Salim and many more actors join the casting. The performance of Prithviraj Sukumaran was a saving factor, his screen presence was holding me, or else I would have left the theatere. The Mannerism of Prithviraj was ok, the way he handled the important scenes and how he expressed the emotions in that scene was convincing. The dialogue delivery went nicely, the timing while telling the dialogue was precise and it was easily handled by Prithviraj. The few action sequences and his style were good but the role of Joshi was not a challenging role for him still he had done a great job. Nayanthara’s role called Sumangali was very bad, her character was badly written by Alphonse Puthren. Nayanthara was having less screen presence and so her performance hasn’t made any sort of impression. Lalu Alex as the father was just ok, his character was poorly written and most of his comedies don’t work out. Some of his scenes were dragged out and the comedies were hard to tolerate. Cheman Vinod Jose, Babu Raj Sabareesh Varma, Vinay Forrt, Krishna Sankar and Jagadish were having crucial supporting roles and everyone did a fair performance but the character depth was not effectively seen.m because of weak writing. Sammi Thilkan did a nice performance as the father of Nayanthara, some of his comedies were entertaining. 

•MUSIC & TECHNICAL ASPECTS: 

The musical work for the film is composed by Rajesh Murugesan. The songs felt average but the background score was amazing. In most of the thrilling scenes, he had given the right set of tunes. The background score just before the action sequences was terrific and most of the BGM synced rightly. The song ‘Thanne Thanne’ was good, and the dance of Prithviraj and Deepti Sati were matching for the song. Another song of a dance number in the film in the second half was also fine, the dance move by the lead girl in that song was impressive. The cinematography by Anend C. Chandran and Viswajith Odukkathil was adequate, and can’t be described as extraordinary, it was satisfying. The shots of ants, trees, sky, and clouds were exhibiting the natural beauty of nature and the action sequences and night shots were fairly shot. The expression of Prithviraj Sukumaran was also taken rightly, especially his closeup shots which were nice to watch. The editing of Alphonse Puthren was nasty, he made the movie nearly three hours long and had given me the worst theater experience. Many scenes were unwanted and the timing of cuts was improper. Also scenes were continuing for a long time and were making the viewing tedious. If the film was trimmed for nearly two hours it would have been watchable, instead of that he kept on stretching every scene and I’m sure his worst editing will test everyone’s patience. The colour grading done by Alphonse Puthren was satisfying, from the very beginning the movie had a different colour tone. Also based on each scene he had effectively changed the colour tone and the mood of those situations was fitting with the colour tone. 

.•CONCLUSION:

So overall the film Gold had given me a disappointing experience because of the poor script and making. The script of Alphonse Puthren was insufficient in content, the storyline was weak with predictable situations and also the screenplay was crammed with boring scenes. Also, the making style of Alphonse Puthren followed the style of his two previous films and this time it went flop and felt like repeating stuff. The editing of Alphonse Puthren was also utterly disgusting, the movie was stretched for nearly three hours and I felt bored and lagged at many scenes. The performance of Prithviraj Sukumaran is the saving factor of Gold. So I won’t recommend watching ‘Gold’, if you are a fan of Alphonse Puthren’s movie then you can book the tickets but still watch it with very less expectations. 

•VERDICT: BELOW-AVERAGE 

•RATING: 2/5

• A Review by ARUNJYOTHI. R