Ajayante Randam Moshanam Review

Ashwin Ram

A.R.M stands for Ajayante Randam Moshanam, a fantasy action drama starring Tovino Thomas and Kriti Shetty in the lead roles. The film is directed by Jithin Laal.

Premise:

Back then, Tovino Thomas’s grandad was a big time thief, so the people in the village have a grudge with his family. How the hero stands up for the pride of the village to earn the lost respect forms the crux of the story.

Writing/ Direction:

Opens up with a powerful voice-over of Mohanlal explaining the origin of the core subject. Soon after, the film loses steam by going path-away and focusing on exaggerated heroism, Tovino Thomas’s introduction sequence had such lethargic writing. The period connection was vital for the story, but most situations narrated in that setting were irrelevant, small-pox, Aishwarya Rajesh’s character, etc… nothing made sense. Jumping into the present timeline, plenty of time is wasted with a boring love track that struggles to be linked with the main plot till the end. The pre-interval setup is promising as the initially established fantasy element develops as the key factor to the conflict. A couple of twists surrounding the Godly concept is interesting, especially the one in the flashback. The adventure portion comes out of nowhere, with random ideas and flat execution. The climax has an impressive closure, but the scenes leading to it are so dead without an engaging play. The below-par screenplay barely offers any sort of entertainment, except for a few humorous dialogues in the first half.

Performances:

Solid performance by Tovino Thomas in a triple role who shows ample dose of variety in his mannerism and expressions, but the script isn’t tight enough to deliver his efforts right. Up next, Rohini plays a good role who makes a mark with her acting as always. Kriti Shetty is fine as the hero’s romantic interest, but her portions are not taken a good care of to blend well with the flow. Plenty of other supporting artists but no worth mentioning importance are given to their roles.

Technicalities:

Technically a lackluster product that had the potential to be big. Okayish songs that were badly placed, not-so-impressive music as the background score never boosted the stunts and as well as the emotions. Camera work is decent, pretty neat during the simple talkie portions, artificial frames when the dull VFX comes into the picture. Careless editing by including many relentless scenes take over the flow, with fine trimming, it would have been a crisp watchable flick. Adequate action as the fight scenes are quite decently choreographed, shows enough peculiarity according to the time period.

Bottomline

Despite the inconsistency in its scale, there is enough substance in the basic level for it to be a passable watch. But the dragging slowburn screenplay hardly has any interesting stretches to engage.

A.R.M - Promising Plot, but the Execution is Underwhelming!

Rating - 2.5/ 5