Balachandra Menon – Movies of the Soul

Vampire Owl: We have had some high expectation about this movie.

Vampire Bat: We never really had high expectations from political thrillers.

Vampire Owl: I am not sure about calling this one under that label though.

Vampire Bat: Well, labels are part of life and some divisions are necessary.

Vampire Owl: Yes, even vampires use different types of labels towards infinity.

Vampire Bat: Labels are forever, even after death and burial.

Vampire Owl: Everyone knows that death is only the beginning.

Vampire Bat: Only the humans do not realize the same caught in the waves of chaos.

Vampire Owl: Maybe they need to make a call from the dead to the living.

Vampire Bat: There are no connections to the living’s identity in the realms past death.

[Gets a chilli paneer dosa and three cups of Darjeeling tea].

What is the movie about? :: K N Varghese (Balachandra Menon) serves as the Chief Minister of Kerala, and has been proving his governing skills which has taken him to new heights, even rising above all those tough allegations raised against him by the opposition. His elder son Tobin Varghese (Nishanth Sagar) is a Member of Parliament, a position asserted by Varghese’s influence, and is married to Rani Tobin (Vijitha Vijayakumar) who is hoping that her husband would one day become a minister. His younger son John Varghese (Nivin Pauly) is a tech entrepreneur who keeps away from politics and is married to Rosa John (Neethu Krishna) with whom he was involved in left-wing politics during college days. Varghese wished to have John involved in his politics, but he had remained elusive, as he had fallen in love with communist leader N P Jayadevan’s (Saikumar) daughter, who became his wife and had decided to not let any more politics in their lives. Varghese, despite his busy life as Chief Minister, has remained a loving husband to Annamma Varghese (Sabitha Anand) and spent time with his children.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: Varghese has his new struggles as the minister, as people within his party and coalition also have problems with his method of working, especially with his closeness to common people and the quick decision-making without involving other elected members or even veterans or ministers. A case of approving bars and closing them according to situation also angers the coalition members, especially who are in charge of particular departments. But things change when a woman named Nisha Chandrakumar (Ann Augustine) comes up with an interview to a reporter Elizabeth Jacob (Aneena Mariya), which is telecasted on the television channel owned by the business tycoon Ravi Madhavan (Sharaf U Dheen). This brings a new scandal to the scene, as Nisha claims that she was called to the minister’s home, and was sexually exploited in his room when she visited him for a favour when nobody else was present at her home.

And what more follows here as a crisis unfolds in a world of chaos and distrust? :: Nisha had also recorded herself entering the house and the video was provided as a evidence, which quickly means trouble as he had already told the media that she did not come to his house at all. This brings an organized attack against Varghese, and the leftist groups arrange huge rallies to attack him, even injuring him despite being stopped by the police. Tobin finds himself in trouble as he is also considered to be a silent partner in all deeds of Varghese. No longer at peace with himself, Varghese has a heart attack and is pronounced death on the very next morning. John who was supposed to reach St. Pietersburg for a new project cancels his trip and returns. Tobin is considered to be the forerunner for the next Chief Minister of Kerala, but the senior members of the party and coalition seem to disagree. At the same time, John gets in the act to save his father’s name, but can he really do that as political games continue in a world without righteousness? There will be more political secrets and conspiracies involving political rivals – is he good enough to go beyond?

The defence of Prathichaya :: Nivin Pauly as John Varghese leads the way, and holds the movie strong, while Balachandra Menon in a solid role, could nicely manage a character that needed quite some effort. Sharaf U Dheen’s antagonist, Harisree Ashokan’s serious manipulator also works. Nishant Sagar comes up with another underrated performance and Vishnu Agasthya has something more than that direct villainy in RDX. Neethu Krishna’s debut is well-received while other female characters by Megha Thomas, Aneena Mariya, Vijitha Vijayakumar and Sabitha Anand remains effective. With some good performances, the movie shows media manipulation, corporate influence and fake image-building which have been part of politics these days instead of the genuine desire to serve people. The father-son emotional mode remains effective throughout the run. This also remains a visually good movie with nice background score. There are some twists in between related to the proceedings. We feel that there are some reflections of the politics of Kerala in the past.

The claws of flaw :: People might still have their expectations too high after Sarvam Maya, even though Baby Girl had attracted less attention in comparison. There is also a lot of predictability associated with this movie, and people might think that the ending is just usual, quick and too easy to expect from this kind of a film. One can also feel that there are too many cliched dialogues which comes in here and there. The movie is a bit too long, and some of these extended dialogues add to slowing down the overall pace. Even with the new technological ideas added here, the movie can feel like belonging to a past at times, that too with new political situations already seen and explored in real life. There were many opportunities to take it out of that expected corporate level extension to the usual, but the movie never takes them, as it seems to be trying to make the protagonist as too smart a person who can go through all of these with ease and come up with flying colours. Yet, being a little too dramatic remains a weak point – after all, the hero is to focus on the family audience more these days, I guess.

How it finishes :: This is the movie which had some hype associated with it, but never really rising that much when we look at the expectation. Now, available in Jio Hotstar in multiple languages, the movie might get better attention as there is a certain amount of tidiness associated with it, never really going out into that clueless chaos. As a clean movie, a political thriller for the families asserted by its cast, there is not more than what meets the eye, but what is suitable for all eyes. As an emotionally strong one, it tries to bank on the family audience and therefore forgets the rest of the audience, which might have led to its downfall as this genre is not that of everyone from home. Maybe, next Nivin Pauly would go back directly to the family audience with their own kind of genre rather than any other. This is still the best movie from B Unnikrishnan in some time, and it does not overdo what seems to go out of control and twisting out of the usual. One can only say that the political thriller forces could come again with more divergence, for Kerala surely has scope for a lot of the same.

Release date: 26th March 2026
Running time: 162 minutes
Directed by: B Unnikrishnan
Starring: Nivin Pauly, Balachandra Menon, Sharaf U Dheen, Harisree Ashokan, Sabitha Anand, Neethu Krishna, Ann Augustine, Saikumar, Maniyanpilla Raju, Chirag Jani, Nishanth Sagar, Vishnu Agasthya, Vijitha Vijayakumar, Megha Thomas, Nandini Gopalakrishnan, Baby Dhwani, Vyshakh, Aneena, Baby Fyza

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@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

What is it about? :: Surya (Prithviraj Sukumaran) is an engineer working in the United States. His family includes his father, the health inspector Krishnamurthy (Balachandra Menon), his mother Subhalakshmi (Seetha) and his sister Aiswarya (Rasna Pavithran). He also has an adopted brother Aju (Neeraj Madhav) who has returned home after resigning from a big job in Microsoft. All seems to go well until one incident changes their lives forever. The world knows it as a mysterious illness killing three members of a family – the father, mother and daughter, but Surya and Aju know that it is not so. Bound by the need for revenge, they team up with Gayathri (Divya Pillai) who has also lost her sibling to an incident on the same day. Soon, they realise that both these incidents are connected.

So what happens next? :: As doubts are raised about who would want to kill the members of this family, all fingers finally point to Wilfred Marcus (Jayaprakash) and his sons Andrew Wilfred Marcus (Tony Luke) and Edwin Wilfred Marcus (Anson Paul). As they set on a path of war against the multi-national company run by these three, there is sure to be a tough job ahead – Surya uses his skills as an expert in creating controlled explosions as part of his job in the United States, while Aju and Gayathri supports the cause. So, this huge firm which supplies medicines after spreading diseases, will have no regret in wiping families out – will they stand these three people going on a war against them? How can a multi-billionaire empire be brought down to its knees by people with no influence? It is to be seen.

The defence of Oozham :: The better side of the movie might be the drama, but that also seems to be on the lines of many other movies; a perfect family with things going worse all of a sudden. With the presence of one cute little sister and a rather modern younger brother goes in lines of Jacobinte Swargarajyam. The idea is good, there is no doubt about it, but had to be presented in a better way, as an original work with more thrills. The cast is all good, and the effectiveness depends on them. The visuals are also nicely done. There is also the message which rather goes lost. The hero-heroine romance never really gets going – that is a relief, as the movie would have drifted further otherwise. This one surely has some interesting moments, and it is for the same that we can go for this movie.

The claws of flaw :: The biggest problem of this movie is that things come too easy. The protagonists all of a sudden seems like people who have been doing the same thing for centuries, may be from the time when the first civilisation was born on the banks of a river – only the immortals could do things this easily against what is claimed to be such a giant organisation. Even the idea itself goes back to the time when the first man was born. Oozham remains outdated in its idea, and even in the way of presentation, it just adds a non-linear narrative which is rather too strange, just like that unnecessary magic realism in Life of Josutty. There are no twists around here, and things finish too comfortably as we wait for the big climax to take our breath away – that is never really there. From the realistic, flawed heroes of Memories, Drishyam and Life of Josutty, we are back to those perfect heroes, sadly.

Performers of the soul :: Prithviraj, as expected remains the central figure, and the biggest selling point of this movie throughout its run. The character, no matter how less developed it is, remains safe in his hands. It is his screen presence that gives something to this protagonist, even when the trouble gets worse with the weak script full of all the cliches you have seen in the movies in so many languages. Neeraj Madhav is provided with another half-baked character who seems to be there in the name of secularism rather than anything else, and he gives some flavour to the one dimensional character that hacks anything because he can – couldn’t this character have a better identity of his own? One has to wonder. These two actors could have brought a huge blockbuster with fine reviews if the script was better.

Further performers of the soul :: Coming right out of Ayal Njanalla, Divya Pillai’s character goes on a struggle here; she has kept it going in a straight line, but there is nothing much for her, and she doesn’t come up with anything out of the box. Rasna Pavithran seems to do a simpler version of the cute act which Aima Rosmy Sebastian did in Jacobinte Swargarajyam and that certainly works. The idea of some cute sister moments has been a family favourite these days, and this movie attempts to use that to its advantage. Actually, one has to say that each member of the cast gets drawn into the set of cliches here, and that has limited the performances to an extent. Pasupathy is strong here, but is rather underused as a character that could have been presented better. Jayaprakash remains a nice villain throughout, but is let down by how the character is not strengthened by the necessary dose of corporate evil. Balachandra Menon and Seetha plays a fine couple with ease.

How it finishes :: There are better things which this movie could have done with its idea which has always been there in movies of other languages. Yes, it is more of a revenge drama than the thriller, but even in that genre, this movie has its limitations. When things come too easily, there is less scope for drama; there was the need to make one feel for the protagonist, but there is nothing there. Still, this movie doesn’t go uninteresting; we can watch it just because we have time – it doesn’t go terrible; Oozham has enough in it to make an average watch as long as you are in a good mood. The worst movie of Jeethu Joseph so far is here, but that is just a statement about his skill as a director, and not a judgment about this movie which can be watched without much expectations and some extra time to spare. This is where you find the cliche collection again; so just don’t look for anything new, even in the dialogues.

Release date: 8th September 2016
Running time: 140 minutes
Directed by: Jeethu Joseph
Starring: Prithviraj Sukumaran, Divya Pillai, Rasna Pavithran, Neeraj Madhav, Balachandra Menon, Kishor Satya, Irshad, Jayaprakash, Pasupathy, Seetha, Tony Luke, Anson Paul