Some years ago, I had strongly raised an important point: that it is high time that the censor board in India introduced a PG-12 (Parental Guidance for children under 12) classification. I wonder how the mothers and their little ones, at the Doubles screening, reacted to the surprise inclusion of a hot item girl—surrounded by pelvic-thrusting males—shaking her fat, white thighs, suggestively.
Though the premise showed some promise, it has been ruined completely by, among other things, a bad plot, poor-joke dialogues, and undeveloped characters.
Mammootty, seasoned with years of tough cop roles, has mastered his superman act. And he does it with panache, these days—tossing strong-bodied people into the air, coolly, and then, posing mocking questions to them with a sweet smile. He also raises his legs in the air quite impressively, and puts up a good fight using two short iron rods. However, there’s plenty of scope for improvement: his actions are a little too slow, making it very evident that the stunts are staged. Also, many of the movements are repetitive; he ought to demand a wider range of fight sequences from his choreographers.
With his comic antics, Mammootty does his part of the inseparable twin convincingly enough, but Moidu lacks in warmth and closeness. As a rescue operator, she’s a disaster. The duo shares no resemblance whatsoever to the child actors who play their respective characters in their youth. And what’s worse: the child actors have neither been trained nor directed properly. The funny cast is not funny; their intended funny lines fall flat.
The pulsating music wakes one up, from time to time.
Diffused lights in the background enrich the décor, in a few of the interior shots, and make for a pleasant ambience. But it’s a shame to see—even today, with better technology and bigger budgets—the same basic mistake recurring in a majority of mainstream Malayalam movies: harsh HMI light shining on the faces of the actors and other principal objects.
And, instead of resorting to unimaginative gimmicks, such as pixilation, the editor ought to have studied some class action films before entering the studio.
When a filmmaker is both raw and starved for ideas, and entrusted with a decent budget and a megastar, it’s very important that they pack their unit with seasoned technicians and associate directors, as well as choose a genre that they are naturally comfortable with. It’s sad that the director ignored these basic guidelines and ended up with an amateur product; sad, mainly because only an elite, privileged few get a dream chance to make their debut film with a great actor. And in such a film, it’s a crime when the image that stands out most prominently is that of a dancing woman’s thigh.
