TEJABHAI AND FAMILY

After socially committed “Arjunan sakshi”, Amazingly made “Urumi”, Critically acclaimed “City of God”, Family entertainer “Manikyakkallu” and Award winning “Veettilekkulla Vazhi”, Prithviraj comes up with a huge disappointment, “TejaBhai & Family”.
First of all the movie as a whole is nothing!! It doesnt have anything new. Never say its a comedy film from Prithviraj. Its a comedy film which has Prithviraj in an important role. Movie is about Teja Bhai, an underworld don from Malaysia and his love life. He falls in love with a social worker Vedhika played by “Kaaryasthan” fame Akhila. But in front of her he has a fake identity of Roshan Varma, a socially committed young man. But Tejha gets into troble when he knows that Vedhika’s father Damodar ji, Played by Thalai Vaasal Vijay is planning her marriage with a guy who has a family which has a clean record. So, Tejha aka Roshan Varma who is an orphan, decides to convince Damodarji that he has a good family history. For that Tejha Kidnaps “Guruji Vashya vajassu” played by Suraaj Venjaaramood, whom Damodarji believes and follows, to find his family. To save his life, Vashyavajassu sets up a whole new family for Tejha, full of frauds.
The plot is loosely based on Hindi movie “WELCOME”. There is one scene in the beginning which is an exact copy from “WELCOME”. Director Deepu Karunakaran might have intended the comedy core of the movie in making the family of Tejha. But he miserably fails. Trying to convince too many feelings is a difficult task. That is what went wrong for Tejabhai. For a childish story line, they tried to add family emotions and true romance. I could rarely feel any on screen chemistry between Vedhika and Tejha. People were yawning and howling when Jagathy Sreekumar’s character talks emotionally to Tejha about the family. The fraud family members were portrayed by Jagathy, Jagatheesh, Kochu preman, Bindhu panikkar, Indrance etc. Performance wise, Prithviraj still has the same old way of doing comedy. Disappointed. The man who almost carries the whole movie is may be Suraaj. If he was not there, the film would have been a huge disaster. Almost every time when he comes on the screen we will have something to laugh. Akhila has performed reasonably well in her character. There is nothing much to perform for others.
Technically, the making is quite ordinary. The “stylish” dialogs are all kinda outdated. The reason of Gopakumar (a character in the movie) escaping from death sentence from Tejha is that Tejha wont work after 5 PM. How Lame!! This is not CID Moosa director sir… Tejha Bhai requires some standard. Prithvi’s comedy was as if he was doing a mimic of Dileep. It doesnt suit you Prithvi.

Positives:
Suraj Venjaaramood
Salim Kumar’s family history story
Music
Oru Madhurakkinavin Remix video

Negatives
Direction, dialogs and story
Camera and Editing are just OK
Same old style ACTION comedy (I mean this Priyadharshan style chaos jokes)
Unnecessary characters

In my opinion, “Tejhabai & Family” is a highly avoidable movie in this Onam-Ramzan season. Its a test of patience at times. If you are a movie freak, you can watch this from theater and make your own opinion. If you are an occasional viewer please dont go for this one.

My rating for director Deepu Karunakaran’s “Tejha Bahi & Family” is “2/5”.
“NEVER EVER SEE YOU AGAIN TEJA..”