Malaikottai Vaaliban Review - Crashing Bore!

Ashwin Ram

Malaikottai Vaaliban is a period action drama starring Mohanlal in the lead role. The film is directed by the national award winner Lijo Jose Pellissery of Jallikattu fame.

Premise: 

Mohanlal plays the titular role of a mercenary. After defeating many fighters across lands, the champion lands in his home ground Malaikottai to save the people who are in slavery under the foreign invader.

Writing/ Direction:

Lijo Jose Pellissery’s vision is always fascinating to experience on a large screen. His aesthetic sense makes every frame amusing. The conflict of the film is simple yet strong, but it takes only in the last 20 minutes. Until then, it predominantly relies on the setup which is unwantedly grand. For a humane core subject it handles, the first two hours are relentless and tires a viewer to the maximum extent. Words can’t express how dead slow the screenplay is, sluggish pace isn’t the issue, there is literally nothing happening in terms of story and more importantly there is absolutely no clue whatsoever what the film is all about. There is a lot of action, but zero drama, fight sequences can never make an impact, no matter how brutal the treatment is, they are just an eye-wash without an emotional reasoning. Unfortunately, the action is underwhelming here, many laughable stunts that make us think whether the intent is actually spoof. The last act is intense, but it is overly late by the time the story lands there after giving a suffocating flow. And, guess what, at the end there is a lead to the sequel as well.

Performances:

Mohanlal fits perfectly in his role which demands a lot of physical effort. He does a believable job in the flight portions. Danish Sait nails it in a creepy character which has a lot of eccentric traits, top quality makeup for him throughout who appears in a terrifying getup. Hareesh Peradi evolves as an important role at the very end, but wasted for the most parts without giving him any sort of involvement in the story. Unknown artists who contribute to the romance part have acted very well and maintain a nice chemistry, however their love scenes felt pointless until they linked with the core conflict during the pre-climax.

Technicalities:

Instruments used set the mood neatly, as the sounds are very truthful to the period timeline of the film, but the score hardly added any value to the situations. Exceptional cinematography, every frame is unarguably gold. Camera angles, lighting, colour tone, likewise everything is top notch in terms of visuals. Editing is mid, cuts are well-planned but unbearably lagging.

Bottomline

Despite notable performances and first class visual output, the film results to be a patience tester beyond limits as the story never progresses till the pre-climax. An outright experimental flick, but with zero engaging factor.

Rating - 2/ 5