Fireman

Fireman is a film that demands high level of technical perfection. If you are watching it from the neutral perspective, you will easily find the level of compromise that the movie has undergone. Even though Deepu Karunakaran underestimates our intelligence, there are certain catchy moments and there is a gripping speed in Fireman that makes the movie an overall nice experience.

Vijay is a senior Fire fighter. One fine evening a tanker lorry containing LPG gets involved in an accident causing a severe leakage of gas. With almost 80% of LPG still in the tanker and all the circumstances against them, Vijay and team are in a do or die situation. How they tackled all the mighty odds within that two or three hour long operation is what Fireman showing us.

As I said the lack of technical perfection due to the limitations in budget of a Malayalam movie is a key reason in Fireman’s lack of impact. There is an explosion sequence in the beginning of the movie which tries to show a big impact of the gas leakage. But with a technically dull mixture of stunts, art direction and visual effects it just looks like they are having fun destroying the sets. And one more demerit is in the unclear script. Mammootty’s character explains the danger of the situation through a pile of impressive dialogues and that has made such a great impact that almost everyone of us will be vigilante in the theater making sure that the guy next to us isn’t carrying any matchbox. But sadly when it came to execution, the characters and the makers seems to be very less concerned about the panicking situation. As a thinking viewer, you will be like “why the fire is not an issue now?” “How are they getting this much of time?” etc. Such demerits get a fair bit of cover up through the direction that keeps the movie in a very engaging mood. The less than two hour movie never really goes to a phase where you will look at the watch. With some satisfying commercial flavors to keep things interested Fireman is a one man show of Mammootty.

On screen Mammootty looks apt for the character as he looks like a senior guy who is physically fit to do all these talking and beating. Unni Mukundan has improved slightly with expressions but the guy still needs to work on his dialog delivery. Nyla Usha doesn’t have much to do in this thriller. Any other actor would have made the character played by Siddique an irrelevant one, but he showed his experience. Salim Kumar was nice. Rest of the cast comprising of many other senior actors also did their respective parts nicely.

Deepu Karunakaran’s treatment has helped the movie in many ways. He has added sense to certain scenes nicely to give it a practical touch. But the script trying to boast its hero and also the loopholes in the narrative makes it slightly disturbing. Cinematography and edits are just about okay. The background score has given the movie a good boost. Art direction and visual effects were on the downside (budget limitations maybe).

Overall Fireman is watchable movie that tries to utilize the sentiments of the unsung fire fighter heroes. With a more careful scripting and an uncompromised large canvas, this movie would have been a much better thriller. Rating for Deepu Karunakaran’s Fireman is 2.5/5.