Review for Neyyattinkara Gopante Aaraattu:
•Language: MALAYALAM.
•Duration: 168 Minutes.
•Genre: Comedy Action Drama
•REVIEW BY ARUNJYOTHI.R
• POSITIVES:
1: Mohanlal’s look and screen presence.
2: Action Sequences.
3: Background Score.
• NEGATIVES:
1: Average Direction and making
2: Worst Cliche Story
3: Weak Screenplay
4: Unwantedly brought the references of old hit movies of Mohanlal
5: Comedies
6: Lighting in cinematography
7: Editing
8: Poor Songs
•ONE WORD: Neyyattinkara Gopante Aaraattu disappoints, a waste of time and money.
•STORY IDEA:
The film begins in Muthalakotta, a village in the Palakkad district. Edathala Mathai is a private banker who needs to level a large area of agricultural land for the township but faces disagreement with the local village authorities so after hearing some legal advice to overcome the local obstacles Edathala Mathai leases the land to Neyyattinkara Gopan who promises to work for him. But Neyyattinkara Gopan is a man with some hidden agenda, why did he come to Muthalakotta, what are his plans and what are his motives is the rest of the story.
•ANALYSIS INTO DIRECTION, STORY, SCREENPLAY & DIALOGUES:
The movie is directed by B. Unnikrishnan and the story, screenplay and dialogues are written by Udayakrishna. The movie is produced by RD Illuminations and MPM Group. The movie is held with the production company of RD Illuminations, Hippo Prime Motion Pictures and MPM Group and the film is distributed by RD Illuminations.
From the glimpse of the teaser and trailer, I was expecting an entertaining mass movie and an all-out Mohanlal show but sadly Neyyattinkara Gopante Aarattu was offering an utterly disappointing cinematic experience. More than the positive elements, the movie is filled with negative drawbacks. The direction was flat and the story was poorly written with a weak screenplay. The duration of 2h 48m was hard to tolerate and the only thing which managed to save this sinking ship was the performance and screen space of Mohanlal. He carried the movie on his shoulders but was not able to save it because of the pathetically written script, the written work of Udayakrishna is the first major drawback of this film.
The whole movie lacked a punch, the dreadful writing by Udayakrishna was not giving any space for the movie to create an impact. The basic outline of the story was looking good but the further components that he had added in the story and screenplay were not at all justifying, it was like a mix of routine cliches. The connecting scenes to the climax were also written badly, the reasons behind the happening and the agenda of the hero to demolish the villain looked silly. Those reasons are something which we used to watch from the 90’s period, therefore, the majority of the scenes felt like repetitive stuff. The climax twist was intended to create a surprise but unfortunately, here the suspense looked shoddy, doesn’t make any sort of chill or amazement and rather the ending looked amateurish without any form of basic logic. Normally logic doesn’t apply to commercial mass movies, still, it should at least have something to digest. Sadly towards the end, the film reveals the true identity of the hero and his motives and it was too overdramatic and felt cliched. Another is the villain, at the climax, the real antagonist is disclosed, a character from the beginning doing all the good things eventually creating an impression and towards the climax disclosing that he is the villain was unbearable to watch. All the major reasons in the film which leads to the climax are written silly with an unstable screenplay.
There were many references to old Mohanlal hit films and it was crammed all over the first half but sad to say that it was annoying at many points. Also, those outlines of his previous hit movies were unnecessarily added and haven’t genuinely matched the situations. It was also irritating and at many portions it was boring, to be more precise it was like a birthday mashup of actors which we can see on youtube. The humour was also ineffective, the comedies were not entertaining and the usage of double meanings was plenty which was also not that great. The whole first half ended without creating an impression and the first part was making space for the actual story. In the first half, enough time was taken to establish the story but it was creating an uninterest in the viewing and unnecessarily the film was dragged heavily until the revealing of the actual story. From the second half, the film was completely collapsing to maintain a track, the plot twist doesn’t make any surprises and the flashbacks were melodramatic and the routine reasons behind the crimes was a regular cliche and finally at the end as a twist, revealing the true identity of the protagonist was rubbish doesn’t make any sense. Also, in the end, there is a scene that makes a way for a second part and it was entirely nonsense. Importantly the characteristic quality and the way of writing the characters were terrible, especially the character of Siddique and Johny Antony, both the character and their actions were testing the patience also was annoying in many areas. The film was also soaked with many unwanted characters, still wondering why an actor like Indrans had signed for this disastrous script.
The direction of Unnikrishnan. B was average in all manner, the whole writing was horrible and it was followed by the unstable presentation which means the direction was not passionate. As a director Unnikrishnan. B should have interfered in the script to make some changes. His previous movies were following an equalised momentum and those movies were enjoyable till the end but here in this film, his making style was nasty. The direction was shaky with many unwanted scenes and the deliberate adding of awful cliche scenes was killing the making so unfortunately, the film Neyyattinkara Gopante Aarattu is the worst work of Unnikrishnan. B; doesn’t expect this from him.
The film has a huge star casting of Mohanlal, Shraddha Srinath, Ramachandra Raju, Sampath Raj, Siddique, Saikumar, Prabhakar, Nedumudi Venu, Srikanth, Ganesh Kumar, Malavika Menon, Rony David, Vijayaraghavan, Indrans, Johny Antony, Alencier Lay Lopez, Suresh Krishna, Ashiwn Kumar, Lukman Avaran, Abu Salim, Bheeman Raghu, Sheela and A.R Rahman appears as himself appears to do the cameo role.
Mohanlal as Neyyattinkara Gopan is the one who carried the movie from the very start to the end. As a film which was intended for a commercial mass entertainer Mohanlal as an actor had honestly given a passionate performance but his performance was not enough to save this sinking ship. The humour in the movie was bad but still, the comedy style which we can see in the character of Mohanlal was funny in some areas, the facial expression which he used to denote we’re good. His Telugu modulated dialogues had suited for the scenarios to build a heroic impact. Mohanlal’s traditional outlook was also charming and it genuinely matched the character. The actions and stunts were thrilling to see, his way of fighting with the villains and the facial expressions he used to give at the time of action sequences had precisely matched. The overall performance was impressive, and it was a Mohanlal stellar show, and I hope his fans are satisfied. Siddique as C.I. Zachariah Alexander shares a large screen space, his character did not have any depth and doesn’t suit the qualities of a Circle Inspector. His character was added with many forced pitty comedies and the performance was not satisfying because of the senseless writing. Johny Antony as the advocate was also forced to do a rubbish character, the character and it’s quality was out of the sense. Vijayaraghavan as one of the villains was ok but nothing much to perform rather than some dialogue. Kottayam Ramesh, Lukman Avaran and Ashwin Kumar plays a crucial role and the performance was moderate. Ramachandra Raju and Riyas Khan make a cameo appearance, a fight with Mohanlal that’s all he got, nothing much. Shraddha Srinath as Sethulakshmi Kaimal, R.D.O of Palakkad was fine, lip-syncing issues were there but still delivered a fair performance.
- MUSIC, BACKGROUND SCORE & TECHNICAL ASPECTS:
The musical work for the film is compared by Rahul Raj which includes the background score. The songs were not that great but the background score was energetic. The track “Onnam Kandam Keri” sung by Swetha Ashok, Narayani Gopan, Yasin Nizar, Mithun Jayaraj, Aswin Vijayan, Rajkumar Radhakrishnan was supposed to create some kind of effect in the viewer’s minds but haven’t got enough volt to make an impact. The lyrics by Rajeev Govindan were good and the rap lyrics were also striking to grab the attention. Still the average song was jammed with vocals of six singers and when they sang together it was fine to hear. The theme song “Thalayude Vilayattam” was favorable and it matched the fight sequences. The background score by Rahul Raj is one of the crucial plus factors of the film. The film was demanding various powerful background scores and the BGM tunes given by Rahul Raj had successfully lifted the important scenes to give more impact. Importantly the background score at the action sequences was cheerful to make some no. Also, when Mohanlal delivers the punch dialogues the background score predominantly ends on the right theme track and during the fights those background scores create a punch.
The cinematography by Vijay Ulaganath was on a mixed level. The visuals by Vijay Ulaganath were okay, his frames and shots were perfect for a commercial entertainer but the lighting methods were inadequate. The camera movements and the fast-paced shots which Vijay Ulaganath implemented on the fight sequences were striking in the best manner. Mohanlal’s action sequences and their various types of shots were delightful to watch. Also, the shots used to exhibit the close-up faces of Mohanlal were also good. The nature and greenery of the rural village were also amazingly captured by the cinematographer, the feel and presence of a village were all overseen in the film.
The lighting techniques used in the film were not of the right quality. The outdoor scenes were unnecessarily added with more lighting and those yellow shades look unmatched. It was added in many areas and most of them were unwanted. Also for the indoor action sequences in the climax the lighting techniques hadn’t suited we’ll. The slow-motion shots at the action sequences also matched the scenarios. The editing by Shammer Muhammed was fair but a crisp and sharp cut was missing. The interval cut was placed at the wrong time and in some action scenes, some sort of mismatches was felt. The colour-grading stood higher in many areas and those were matching, especially the colour grading in the song “”Onnam Kandam Keri” the visual appeal looked great.
The costumes of Mohanlal were rich, his traditional method of Kurtha and Mundu was looking fantastic and also the modern dress of costumes matched for him, all his clothing styles were terrific. The action choreographers had also done an excellent job on bringing out terrific action sequences. The fights looked incredible and it was choreographed according to the style of every actor. Mohanlal was comfortable with the action sequences and it was evident in the film, so the ideas of action choreographers were ideal and the entire action sequences were superb.
So overall to conclude because of the flawed script and by the weak direction the film Neyyattinkara Gopante Aaraattu had given an utterly disappointing experience. Mohanlal’s performance was the only enjoyable factor and I don’t like to recommend this senseless movie to anyone, so watch it at your own risk.
