The movie also features one of the most pumped-up entries for any young star I've watched recently in any movie in any language - the beat, the music, the rap, the Molotov cocktail, the blazing fires, the resolute red flag in the ascendant and of course the assured slow motion accompanying the grand entry of Dulqar Salman - if the youth of the nation does not fall for this, I do not know what else they will fall for. Except that most of the well-informed youth must have already fallen for the original Kanye West song, "No Church in the Wild" from which Dulquer's entry is copied scene to scene.
For Dulqar Salman, playing the protagonist - a young communist Aji
Mathew, it is love that shines as a beacon on a distant shore. He scorns
the idea of visas, distances and border walls in a way only foolish and
impulsive twenty somethings in love can. It
only seems natural that being a bona-fide communist Aji should have
routine midnight conversations about his love life with his three
trusted, official mentors - Marx, Lenin and Che (pretty good lookalikes
for a Malayalam movie.)
If you can look beyond the foolhardiness of the central character and
forgive Amal Neerad, the director for building a movie around such an
inane cause, the film in fact is enjoyable with its sprightly dialogs,
interesting vistas, well crafted side characters and
informative like a memoir documentary.
Kudos to the director and team in attempting a subject - U.S (southern) border
crossing in an Indian regional language film. It is also the first film,
international or otherwise, that I have watched recently, dedicated to
all refugees from all over the world. With refugee
crisis holding center stage in the news I am sure there will be more
and there should be more, but glad to have seen it first in a Malayalam
movie.
The film rides on the star power of Dulqar Salman with good support from
Siddique, Dileesh Pothan, Soubin Shahir, Parvathy, Jinu Joseph and new
comer Karthika Murali. The only character that felt out of place was the
Malayali girl with an unconvincing story
who turns up in the U.S-Mexican border crossing group, named Pallavi
played by Chandini Sreedharan - not to reflect adversely on Chandini's
acting skills. Pallavi's grand father might have been the Malayali who had that
tea-shop on the Moon when Armstrong made the
giant leap for mankind and was (tricked into) thinking he was the
first man on the Moon. Then again I can understand the director and
writer's justification of allowing our handsome, charismatic hero an
incidental female crutch, if the movie had to be
a commercial success 😊 - which it was.
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