Kohinoor

A heist movie set in the year 1988, Vinay Govind’s second venture after Kili Poyi, Kohinoor is a non boring entertainer that lacks an exciting suspense and needs much more unpredictability. Through the scattered witty moments that work because of the performances, the movie manages to stay alive, but at the end of it all you won’t remember much of it to relive the fun.

Louis is this young fellow who has this ambition of doing smuggling and becoming rich in a quick time. His best friend is Aandy Kunju who was there with him in everything from childhood. The basic plot of the movie revolves around a big scale smuggling that happens in a textile shop. Aandy Kunju gets an offer to be a part of this robbery and the movie tells us how the two friends makes the most of this big fortune that came their way.

Setting the film in the backdrops of 80’s is somewhat a smart play by the screenplay writers; the limited facilities available at that time sort of reduce the chance for script loopholes. The cast of the movie had these impressive performers who make the movie passable. Never really in its entire narration the film manages to create an eager in our minds on what will happen next. The only phase I felt the movie grabbed the attention was in the second half where Haider manages the situation when things didn’t go as per their planning. Even in that phase there is a certain amount of predictability as we are familiar to this genre. The romance part was a complete waste and they failed to merge it with the situation. The last half an hour of the movie has this series of events where Louis makes a fool out of Haider which kind of made me question the sensibility of such an antagonist.

On screen, Asif Ali was okay in his portrayal in the typical style. Indrajith delivers a nice performance as Haider. Chemban Vinod Jose and Vinay Forrt in their usual style makes the audiences laugh at certain points. Aju Varghese was nice in his fat bald character with that moustache; at some points he reminded me of actor Innocent.  Aparna Vinod has nothing to do in this film, except for some walking and smiling. Sudheer Karamana and Rizabava were fine in their roles.

Vinay Govind has tried to keep a retro feel to the movie. But the movie demanded more of a swift exciting way of storytelling. Script from Salil Menon and Ranjeet Kamalashankar follows a pattern we are somewhat familiar. If you compare it with last year’s Prithviraj starrer SST, the abundance of humor and a worthy suspense puts the Anil Radhakrishna Menon film much ahead of Kohinoor. I don’t know how many of you will find the shop with CCTV cameras and trial rooms in a rural area convincing. The cinematography was good. They have tried their best, but still in some scenes you can clearly see certain mistakes in creating 1988 backdrop. Music has made waves and I must say that Hemanthamen is really a beautiful composition from Rahul Raj.

Overall, Kohinoor is a watchable film that doesn’t stay in your mind for long. The rating for the film is 2.5/5. A better suspense and a few more interesting scenes like the “improvisation” inside the shop would have made it more of a genuine one.