Review for NARADHAN:
•Language: MALAYALAM.
•Duration: 02 Hours 30 Minutes.
•Genre: Political Drama Thriller
Theatre: JB CINEMAS NALLILA
•REVIEW BY ARUNJYOTHI.R
• POSITIVES:
1: CINEMATOGRAPHY
2: EDITING
3: ART DIRECTION
4: PERFORMANCE OF SOME ACTORS.
• NEGATIVES:
1: POOR DIRECTION
2: WEAK SCREENPLAY
3: BORING STORYLINE.
4: LACK OF GOOD BACKGROUND SCORE.
5: AVERAGE PERFORMANCE OF TOVINO THOMAS.
•ONE WORD: Naradhan failed to create an impact and it’s a movie that makes fun of journalism.
•STORY IDEA:
The film Naradhan portrays the life of Chandraprakash, he works as a senior journalist in the channel called News Malayalam. He is an anchor and a television newsreader who has huge followers among the audience. His boss and editors always pressurise him to do false stories and fabricated news which makes him question the ethics of journalism and his moral principles. Soon Chandraprakash’s life will get some unexpected happenings and his life and his career will move into another dimension, he will be known as CP in the media field. How did it happen and will he do journalism in ethics is the rest of the story.
•ANALYSIS INTO DIRECTION, STORY, SCREENPLAY & DIALOGUES:
The film Naradhan is directed by the hitmaker Aashiq Abu and the story, screenplay and dialogues are written by the veteran writer Unni R. The movie is produced by Santhosh T. Kuruvilla, Rima Kallingal and Aashiq Abu under OPM Cinemas and Moonshot Entertainments and the film is also distributed by OPM Cinemas.
Aashiq Abu teaming with Unni. R and Tovino Thomas, this announcement had given me some expectations and when the trailer was released the glimpse was all about journalism and it’s field. So as a journalism student my expectation of the film had grown higher and today I happened to see Naradhan and my final verdict is the film was disappointing. The weak making, the miserable writing of the script and the performance from the lead actors had tested my patience to a large extent. The duration of the movie was two hours and thirty minutes but it felt more than that, the film was lengthy.
The first major drawback is the script by Unni. R, for the first time I am disappointed in the writings of Unni. R. His vision and ideas on journalism must be corrected, his writing was like an insult to the media field. His various thoughts and beliefs did not justify the media acts and the various hidden trials he exhibited on his script was like a public mocking against the media. Does he have any idea how a media firm works, creating a character and making him a newsreader and at last granting him all the permission to talk rubbish is not what the news anchors do. In the present society, it’s not possible, there is a code of conduct and a system. In the film, the most irritating thing was the made-up news, for a launching channel media creating fake news and making traps for politicians and purposefully haunting them was annoying to watch. This is not how the media works, every human is a headline but they are not a target. In the climax, the movie is indicating the true ethics of journalism and the code of conduct that a journalist should follow but how Unni R had written the script and how he made various situations to reach into the climax doesn’t have proper logic. The entire second half was like watching an overdramatic drama, with no proper logic and no good valid reason. Many unexpected incidents are filled in the second part, the media field was shown as a puppet of someone.
I think Unni R was believing that a popular newsreader has the power to create any news and telecast anything he wants, if he believes like this then he is wrong. In the movie, the news against a minister was telecasted as the premier program and in the end, the minister resigns his post. But how is the credibility of the news, is there any truth about it and how do they get the news and why police or government doesn’t take any steps to investigate is not at all shown in the film and the script deposit considers these facts. In this film the script was mocking the media, the showing media in the film doesn’t create any reality, it was sadly not at all close to any original media which we can see. The only good thing I liked was at the climax, the film had tried to express some media ethics, and invasion of privacy was also moderately done.
The drawback in the direction of Aashiq Abu was he didn’t execute the movie interestingly, both the first half and the second part was lagging. The film started well, the first half was going pretty smoothly and the interval ended for a promising second half but the senseless writing had made the second half tedious and uninteresting. The first half was taking enough time to establish the central character, his work, his passion and his interest in journalism was told nicely but still, it could have been trimmed a little bit. The second half is all about the transformation of the central character to a new personality. From this very moment, both the direction and the writing started to get scattered. The second half was unnecessarily dragged with many illogical ideas and concepts and towards the end, the film portrays a courtroom and many cases related to different situations. The courtroom scenes were supposed to create some thrilling moments but nothing was exciting and how they presented the court and its happening was also not convincing. The ending twist was also not creating any kind of impact, the suspense looked amateurish and silly and the ending was giving an average experience.
The character shades and change of personality shown in the Tovino Thomas character was good. How he is changing, the circumstances which force him to change, the reasons behind it and how he finally gets transformed into a new personality was satisfyingly directed by Aashiq Abu. But unfortunately, Aashiq Abu’s instruction to Tovino Thomas on how to perform as a newsreader was disgusting. In many areas, at the portion of the newsreader, an artificial feel was seen in the performance of Tovino Thomas. I wish Aashiq Abu had interfered and given some advice for Tovino Thomas to change it. So for me Naradhan is the worst work of Aashiq Abu and Unni R, effort in the making and also in writing was missing.
- PERFORMANCE OF ACTORS:
The casting of the film comprises Tovino Thomas, Anna Ben, Sharaf U Dheen, Joy Mathew, Vijayaraghavan, Balachandran Chullikkadu, Jayaraj Warrier, Rafi, Kunchan, Indrans, Jaffer Idukki, Renji Panicker, Lukman Avaran, Navas Vallikunu and many more.
Tovino Thomas, who played the central character Chandraprakash, delivered an average performance. From the glimpse of the trailer and teaser, I was sure that Tovino was going to perform drastically and but the overall performance didn’t impress me, it was too artificial. It was a challenging role, the character was amazing and the particular character was demanding a classy performance but his usual acting skills were not able to be seen in the character of Chandraprakash. So Tovino Thomas’ way of undertaking the character was mediocre, as a newsreader his attitude and mannerism was not realistic. As a popular journalist, how he performed and how he established the character according to the plot was not symbolising his acting skills. The character goes through different kinds of emotions and we can also see two behavioural variations on his character. The way Tovino Thomas handled it was good to see and that portion was the one which I liked. From the very beginning till the end he was not having the precise qualities of a newsreader, the personality of a TV celebrity and the nature of a journalist was missing in many areas. Seriousness, arrogance, innocence, struggle, excitement, anger etc drive through the character and how Tovino Thomas had tackled them but some of them were not convincing. His timing in delivering the dialogues was not that perfect, his conversations haven’t gone smoothly with the right tone. How Tovino Thomas speaks when he is a newsreader and how he represents his television firm and how he addresses his viewers on a live show was not having depth because of the unnatural way of presentation.
Anna Ben who did the Shaakira Mohammed character shines throughout and her performance was flawless. As an advocate, the right mannerism was able to be seen in her performance and her spontaneous perfection in passing out the dialogue was favourable for the courtroom situations. Her arguments and her serious look was amazing, she maintained the right attitude of a sincere advocate. Indrans as the judge did a stunning performance, as a court judge he did an honest job. His serious tough look and the dialogues at the climax was interesting to watch also the innocence that he maintained in his character deserves mention. Ranji Panicker as Govinda Menon had also played the role of an advocate. He had also performed well, his English accent and timing in delivering those dialogues were good to watch. The climax was average but still it went watchable because of the performance from Anna Ben, Indrans and Ranji Panicker.
Sharafudheen as Pradeep John was also moderate at the performance, his news reading as a TV anchor doesn’t come out well. Joy Mathews as the chief editor did his part well, his work pressure and how he gives the ideas to his employees to make the firm profitable was quite interesting to watch. Vijayaraghavan as Babuji and Kunchan as Gurudasan, Minister of Finance, Govt. of Kerala played significant roles and both did well. Rajesh Madhavn as Kevin Lukman Avaran as the junior advocate did complete justice and towards the end both of them acted well for their characters. Jaffer Idukki as Fr. Daniel Purambokkil, Balachandran Chullikkad as Vijayan, Raghunath Paleri as Lawrence and Jayaraj Warrier as Bharathan did complete justice to their respective supporting characters.
- MUSIC AND BACKGROUND SCORE:
The musical work for the film is composed by Sekhar Menon and the background score is tuned by Neha Nair and Yakzan Gary Pereira. The song “Thannatthan” sung by Fejo was mixed with a rap musical style. The lyrics were also by Fejo, the song was average, the guitar notes by Rex Vijayan were good to hear but the tune doesn’t suit well for the hearing. The background score was normal, nothing special was felt. It matched the various situations still the climax portion was lacking with some good effective background scores.
- TECHNICAL ASPECTS:
Naradhan is a film with a brilliant technical team, the efforts taken by the technical team had made this film look richer. The frames, the sound mixing, the editing, the costumes and the art direction was at the top class rate. The cinematography by Jaffer Zadique was remarkable because it’s a film that focuses on the field of journalism so the visuals should match the media premises and that’s what Jaffer Zadique brings out through his visuals. His frames and shots were crossing every aspect of a new modern television channel which helped the film to connect within the audience. His frames and visuals had the power to make us understand how a media house will be and how they are conducted and how they are operating. Through these captivating visuals one may feel that they are inside a media firm, the entire visuals of the movie was pleasing for the viewing experience. Also, the closeup shots which used to embark the emotions of the characters went well, their various types of emotion on the face was beautifully captured. The cinematographer had taken an extra effort to apprehend Tovino Thomas’s acting skills, had done an incredible job and more appealing was given because of the camera work. His character in the film is passing through various emotions so how the cinematographer shot that emotion will make us remember the observation of the cameraman. The lighting techniques for both that indoor scene and outdoor scenes were accurate, the newsroom studio was balanced with the right lighting methods. So the cinematography by Jaffer Zadique was impressive and the camera work of this film is one of the major winning highlights. The editing by Saiju Sreedharan was smooth and sharp and I haven’t felt any sort of mismatches in the viewing experience. The transition of the scene had matched and the grading also went accurate. The work by the Art Department was very much impressive, they had brought authentic sets and artwork. How does a media studio looks like, what are the properties we can see and how their offices are arranged was beautifully designed by the Art Director without any mistakes. So the neat and well-planned work by the Art Department had made this film look realistic. Also, the costume division had given matching costumes for every character, as a newsreader Tovino Thomas was looking charming and his suit brought the outlook of a popular newsreader. The sound mixing was also nice, the mix of dialogues and its hearing had given the feel of realism.
- CONCLUSION:
So overall to conclude the film Naradhan had given me a disappointing cinematic experience because of the average making and poor writing. The performance of Tovino Thomas was also not satisfying, his natural skills in acting were missing. Sadly this film doesn’t have any spark of Aashiq Abu’s brilliant direction and also writing wonders of Unni R was completely missing, both the writing and making was not satisfying.
So I won’t like to recommend this movie to anyone, watch it at your own risk.
- VERDICT: BELOW AVERAGE AND BORING.
- FINAL RATING: 2/5
