Mohan Lal even in 60’s is looking to do different stories and work in at least 5 films a year. He came up with a surprising Manyam Puli 2 years ago which created huge records. Like the title of the movie suggests, he is a shape-shifter as an actor too. Can his latest hyped film, Odiyan come close to Puli records or even cross them?
Plot : Odiyan Manikyam (Mohan Lal) is the last alive of his kind. But he is hated by his village as he went wild and killed two innocents. As Odiyan be shapeshifts into animals at night and frighten people during nights. Odiyans shouldn’t kill, but he did say the villagers.
He challenges a young guy who threatens him to threaten after knowing that he is a relative of Rajarao (Prakash Raj). Rajarao is highly in love with Prabha (Manju Warrier) and she just doesn’t accept him. Why so? Whom did Odiyan kill? Watch movie for answers …
Performances : Mohan Lal is charming and his new look is presented very well. But then his performance seem very monotonous after a point as he is not given much to do. The writer tries to build the emotions and add different things so that we can also see actor Mohan Lal but each scene overstays its welcome by eons and eons even making us not appreciate his efforts.
Manju Warrier is very good in her character. But then she seems too rusty. Prakash Raj character doesn’t appear scaring rather it feels like a bad racist joke. Still, the actor performed well. All others are just there to fill the screen and they do it so.
Technicalities : BGM by Sam CS is repetitive as if the composer thought he needs to remind us of film name and character name every 10 minutes.
Music by Jayachandran is good enough. Two songs are impressive but the dubbed lyrics work for lack of comedy in the film.
DOP Shaji Kumar created very good visuals showing new Mohan Lal and the climax visuals are the best. But it is like someone put a competition for painting like visuals every minute of the film without any meaning or content.
Editing by John Kutty is a culprit for the film. He could end some scenes and shots early but he doesn’t. He could have made the entire film 30 to 40 minutes shorter but he didn’t.
Story-Screenplay-Dialogue by Harikrishnan is very tedious. A short story seems to have been prolonged way more than the welcome. Screenplay tries to be non-linear and starts off with a bang. But then it goes on and on trying to say a very predictable and already seen story in the similar way for too long. Dialogue is also very boring and unnecessarily long.
Direction by VA Shrikumar Menon is technically sound but he falls completely short of presenting a strong story with scenes that build the emotions. He just gives good build-up for a satisfying pay-off but he keeps building up and building up so much that rather than anticipating for the big climax we end up getting bored so much that we rather sleep off and open eyes after 2 hrs to find out that the story hasn’t moved an inch.
Analysis : A movie cannot be just about performances and visuals. It needs a good story and pleasing scenes as well. It shouldn’t be an exercise to our eyes to watch and not feel anything. There are two leads with good chemistry but we get flash backs as if there is a short story contest throughout the film. Some new characters suddenly enter and exit that randomly without having any impact on main story.
Novels need not have to create a continuous character and can bring in new characters in different chapters and kill them as well. We know that Prakash Raj is the main villain with his introduction and the rest of the film feels like an exercise why there is a villain and why Mohan Lal disappeared for 15 years. Which all could have ended in 15 minutes. The drag goes on and on for 2 hours 30 minutes for 10 minutes climax. It feels like even we grew 150 years old although they just grow 15 years on screen.
Rating : 1.5/5
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