If the television level skit comedies are what you are expecting from a comedy entertainer movie, Welcome to Central Jail starring Dileep is an okay film. The theme of the movie is so damn wafer thin and clichéd and all they have tried is just to include numerous jokes, largely misogynistic to get that instantaneous laughter. Compared to the other typical festival blockbusters of Dileep, Sundar Dass’s Welcome to Central Jail is a disappointment without a doubt.
Unnikkuttan is our main protagonist and as his parents were prisoners, the Central Jail is like a home to him. So he accepts punishments for other people and tries to spend maximum time inside this prison. In the midst of this, Unnikkuttan falls in love with a girl and before he could express his feelings, the girl gets in to some legal trouble and gets imprisoned. The film is basically about Unnikkuttan’s attempt to prove this girl’s innocence in whichever way he could.
The movie has so many experienced people like Sundar Dass, Benny P Nayrambalam and Dileep and I was surprised how none of them could find the torturous nature of some of the scenes they executed. The whole sequence surrounding that Ice cream shop inauguration gives a tough competition to some of those nonsensical Tamil comedies. There are a few more sequences in this movie which only forces you to take your eyes away from the screen because of the illogical overdone nature of it. The first half is largely a session where they have tried to stuff as many jokes as they can and there is very little there that takes the story ahead. Even when the second half starts to unfold all the mysteries, the things they show are all pretty much the clichéd things which Mr. Nayramabalam used to write in those earlier days of his career.
Dileep has this ability to make those eccentric comedies work. But in the case of Welcome to Central Jail, there are places where we would find his typical performance a bit irritating. Vedhika’s character doesn’t challenge her at all. There are many more characters in this elaborate cast including Renji Panicker, Hareesh, Aju Varghese, Siddique, Shajon, Thesni Khan, Kailash, Sharafudheen and all those stage show artists. The antagonists in this movie are also following the style which we have seen in movies that were released 10 or 15 years back.
Sundar Dass has no control over the way the comedies should have been executed. Humor is constrained to verbal exchange. The script is way too outdated and often is struggling to create something fresh. At certain areas we could see some really preachy melodramatic sentiments in the movie trying to capitalize the “Janapriyan” tag of our hero. The songs were quite disappointing and the BGMs couldn’t create any impact. The love theme used in the movie reminded me of the “Manikkinavin” song from Pokkiriraja. Edits and cinematography are also quite average.
On the whole Welcome to Central Jail is a letdown. I wont say I never laughed during the entire film. Because there are numerous counter dialogues in the movie which succeeds in making you giggle. But the lack of a solid plot and over reliance on skit jokes makes this Dileep movie a boring one.
Rating : 2/5
the lack of a solid plot and over reliance on skit jokes makes Welcome to Central Jail a boring one.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
