All that begins well, doesn't end well - Vinodayathra

Movie : Vinodayathra (Malayalam)
Credits:
Sathyan Anthikkad (Story, Screenplay, Dialogue, Direction)
M M Hamsa (Producer)
Ilayaraja (Music)
Vayalar Sarathchandra Varma (Lyrics)
S Kumar (Cinematography)
K Rajagopal (Editing)

All that begins well doesn’t end well!
A safe bet to enjoy your weekend with family, paisa vasool, a sensible movie – all these are set expectations, when you step in to see a movie from Sathyan Anthikkad and crew. Unfortunately, for the second time consecutively (earlier one being Rasathanthram), the director disappoints.

Vinodayathra is Vinod’s (Dileep) journey through life. The movie begins when Shaji Raghavan (Mukesh) an Engineer in the irrigation department, is informed by his wife Vimala (Seeta) that her brother Vinod is coming to stay with them for a while. Vinod had been a loafer and fiddling around with his life for sometime, not sticking to any job and getting involved in petty fights with his neighbors. Shaji, on the other hand is an ideal guy, with lot of principles. Vinod is sent to observe the lifestyle and principles of his brother-in-law so that he can improve. The news of Vinod’s arrival gives jitters to Shaji, as he is concerned about a possible affair that can happen between his sister Reshmi (Parvathy) and Vinod. Shaji introduces Vinod to a retired I. G – John Mathew (Nedumudi Venu) who is in need of an assistant to help him in preparing service story. Vinod ends up doing all domestic chores for John Mathew and is unhappy about his job. In an “official” trip, Vinod bumps into Anupama (Meera Jasmine) who happens to be drugged. Being a Good Samaritan helps her by putting her in a safe place and leaving his mobile number for her. This lands him up in more trouble and he slowly gets driven to Anupama seeing her problems.

There ends the racy and entertaining first half of the movie. What follows is a dragging second half, where the entertainment value just plummets to zero. Sathyan’s message to this generation youth is almost clear – he urges the youth to know what life is before they actually start to live! There are many scenes where the protagonist gets insights of life from various other characters in the movie. Unfortunately, these messages went a little overboard, and scattered across different characters, affecting the flow of movie. In short, the director has dished out something, which is not very edible. It is definitely better than Rasathanthram, but cannot be rated equal to any other movie from the director.

On the positives, the director has handled Dileep extremely well. Mukesh puts in one of his best performances and Ganapathi – a new child artiste, who plays a juvenile home runaway, proves himself as an upcoming asset to the industry. The supporting cast, Murali, Parvathy, Seeta, Innocent, Rashmi Nambiar – all have done their part well. However, a few talents like Nedumudi Venu, KPAC Lalitha, Innocent, Mamukkoya seems to be wasted. The biggest disappointment is a bloated up and stereotyped Meera Jasmine, who exhibits no chemistry with the hero. Her character is a repeat telecast of Samyuktha’s role in Veendum Chila Veettukaaryangal and her own role in Kasturiman.

Verdict: “Just” bearable, provided you have nothing else to do on a weekend!