Up and Down Mukalil Oralundu

“Up and Down Mukalil Oralundu” from director T K Rajeev Kumar is a thriller that has a fresh body but works on the same old engine. In a plot that has ample characters to distract the audience, the story can’t really pull off a climax that is surprising for the audience. Narrated in the congested canvas of a lift, the freshness of the movie is only visible in this selection of backdrop.

The story revolves around the happenings in a flat on its anniversary celebrations. The police commissioner is invited to the function as the chief guest. The lift carrying the chief guest and some of the residing of the flat gets stuck on its way to the top floor. In the midst of this tension, the lift operator tells the commissioner about the vanishing of a prostitute who came in the flat the night before to meet someone. How the commissioner solves the case within the limited time and how they manage to get out of the lift which isn’t in a safe condition is what the movie all about.

Well, the movie is an engaging one for its selection of backdrop and the entire first half is something that creates a genuine curiosity. With Meghna Raj’s character appearing in different get ups the possibility of something fresh was really on the cards. But the second half pulls the movie back to that predictable zone where the writers try to close all those deviations they created in the first half with sub plots involving revenge, betrayal, ego, black mailing etc.

T K Rajeev Kumar has handled the movie well in the first half sequences, but he wasn’t able to fix the errors of the script that goes in an indigestible way with inclusion of many elements that didn’t look practical. The script starts of interestingly and falls suddenly just like the lift. As I mentioned earlier the subplots were not that charming. The script also failed in distributing the screen time to characters. When a main stream actress stands like just someone in the crowd, that itself gives some signals to the audience who are familiar with this formula. The camera work is satisfactory and the art section is good. Music was quite ordinary and the BGM was just about convincing. The edits weren’t that cool.

On screen, Indrajith is really good as the humble and simple lift operator Thampuran. For me the best performer was Mr. Prathap Pothan who portrayed the role of the novelist quite smartly. The character had multiple shades and he delivered it as per requirement. Meghna Raj is good in her prostitute portrayal. Ganesh Kumar gets a role with much screen time and he has done it neatly. Rest of the cast including Nandu, Remya Nambeesan, Baiju, Jayakrishnan, Rajith Menon, Kochu Preman and the child artist have done their job neatly. Sruthi Menon was an absolute letdown.

Overall, “Up and Down Mukalil Oralundu” is a charmless thriller that had its scope to go for something unconventional. If you are open to the old formulae of thrillers, this one won’t bore you. I am giving it a 2.5/5. Neither up nor down.