Cast and Crew:
Starring: Mohanlal, Suresh Gopi, Dileep, Sarath Kumar, Lakshmi Rai, Kanika, Lakshmi Gopalaswamy, Kavya Madhavan
Directed by: Joshiy
Produced by: A. V. Anoop, Maha Subair
Written by: Udayakrishna, Siby K. Thomas
Singers: Shankar Mahadevan, Rimi Tomy, Shweta Mohan, Nikhil, Ranjith,
Lyricist: Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri
Music by: Deepak Dev, Rajamani(Background Score)
Cinematography: Anil Nair
Editing by: Ranjan Abraham
Studio: AVA Productions, Varnachithra Big Screen, Medimix
Distributed by: Varnachithra Big Screen
To be frank, ‘Christian Brothers’ is a film that baffles me when I sit down to write the review. To be honest, I am not impressed with the movie. I don’t even feel like seeing it once again; I am one of those who’d love to see some of the old hits of Joshiy again and again. Personally speaking, I won’t give the film as much rating as I am going to.
But when I ask myself as to what else I expected to see, I am baffled. Indeed ‘Christian Brothers’ is almost exactly what I expected it to be- a smaller version of ‘Twenty-20’. It’s basically a film for Mohanlal fans and is scripted in such a manner as to give space to the co-stars too.
Captain Verghese Mappilai (Saikumar) has two sons and two daughters. The elder son Christie (Mohanlal) is in Mumbai, with lots of underworld connection. The younger one (Joji) is abroad; his father had sent him to become trained for priesthood, but now he has fallen in love with a girl named Meenakshi (Kavya Madhavan) and has left the seminary. It’s when Meenakshi, who reaches Kerala and whose father (Devan) is the Home Minister, is kidnapped and a huge amount demanded as ransom that Christie is called in. Christie is now said to be a high-profile police informer and he is brought in to save Meenakshi. He does that, quite easily, but very soon he himself is arrested, on charges of murder. It’s the very daring and upright police officer Joseph Vadakkan (Suresh Gopi) who is up in arms against him. Then enters Andrews (Sarath Kumar) from Mumbai, who has a purpose behind his arrival.
Into this is woven the story of the villainous Kumaran Thampy (Vijayaraghavan) and his equally villainous sons and son-in-law, who are all against Verghese Mappilai and family for some other reasons. It’s action, drama, sentiments all moving on to a predictable climax.
There’s nothing new or great about ‘Christian Brothers’, except perhaps the coming together of Mohanlal, Suresh Gopi, Dileep and Sarath Kumar. But on the whole it’s a Mohanlal film and all the other characters have been created to prop him up.
Since ‘Christian Brothers’ is almost the thing that I hoped to see, I was not totally disappointed and I am sure that you too won’t be disappointed. It’s what we want it to be or rather what we expect it to be.
Performances
‘Christian Brothers’ is not much about performances; it’s more about the presence of popular stars. Almost all of them, including Mohanlal, have put in OK kind of performances. There is nothing outstanding. The only actor who rises above the ordinary is perhaps Saikumar, who is sort of overshadowed by the presence of so many stars. The actresses however lack importance. The key roles could have been done by anyone, especially the characters played by Dileep and Sarath Kumar and hence it’s evident that these stars have been brought in just to make it a star-studded affair.
Technical aspects
The cinematography, editing and art-work suit the theme and contribute to making the film a ‘big’ thing.
Music
Songs, penned by Kaithapram and set to tune by Deepak Dev are just about OK.
Script
Sibi.K.Thomas and Udayakrishna once again does what they have been doing all these years- namely mixing up things that are very much familiar and oft-repeated and coming up with a blockbuster. They must be appreciated for the effort they have put in to give each of the four key actors due importance.
Direction
Joshiy is very much in control of things, as he usually is. The film is in essence a Joshiy film, but I won’t say that I liked it as I had liked some of his all-time bests.
Overall Verdict - Strictly for fans, OK for a one-time watch. Nothing great!
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