Maheshinte Prathikaaram

As a cinema, Maheshinte Prathikaaram lies in the zone of movies like Idukki Gold and Da Thadiya because of the simplicity. But when you look at the number of things that get covered in a two hour long movie and the amount humor you could sense in them, this one from Dileesh Pothan becomes refreshingly entertaining. With Fahadh Faasil delivering a top notch performance, this story of a common man’s revenge is extremely pleasing and hilarious from the starting to the very last point.

Mahesh Bhavana owns a studio in the Prakash City in Idukki. His father was a photographer and Mahesh does this usual wedding, funeral photography. He had a long time love affair with his school classmate. The movie is actually built around an incident that sort of created an insecurity and complex inside Mahesh about his lack of ability to stand against someone. How that happens and how many other tragedies happen in Mahesh’s life and how he manages to overcome that and many other drawbacks in his life is what Maheshinte Prathikaaram all about.

The beauty of Maheshinte Prathikaaram is in the fact that the revenge he aspires is pretty understandable. Even though the second half begins in a humorous style, what it is stating is what almost all of us had to face when we actually want to react, but just cant because of our lack of skill in physical assault. Another good thing about MP is that it isn’t entirely stuck on the idea of that basic revenge. A lesson on photography is given in the movie and that isn’t isolated from the main story. It plays a key role in the love story and self discovery of our protagonist. And there are also many humorous elements that successfully visualize the backdrop of Idukki and its life style. And it also succeeds in accommodating the antagonist in a interesting way.

His films might not have worked in the recent past, but his performances over the years never disappointed us. Just that latest song featuring him and Anusree is a perfect example of how smartly he expresses in the most delicate way. Fahadh was fabulous and as always he gets into the skin of the character. Anusree also performs delightfully and I am a little amused that she isn’t getting many roles in this industry. Alencier Lay and Soubin Shahir creates a lot of hilarious moments in the movie. The last combination scene of the duo got continuous applauds from the audience(That too multiplex audience). Aparna Balamurali looked really promising as Jinsy. Rest of the cast also looked apt for the roles.

Coming from Aashiq Abu School of film making, Dileesh Pothan’s making style has a lot of similarities. The way the dialogues are delivered, the style in which realness is kept in frames etc. will remind you of the sort of simple comedies delivered by Aashiq Abu. The main reason behind the success of this movie is Syam Pushkaran’s writing. There is a scene in the movie where an argument happens between two people at a funeral and a communist leader tries to settle that. For a moment I thought they just added this scene to create some humor and the scene then went on to two more sequences which finally became the reason for the main conflict of the film. That really impressed me! As I mentioned in the beginning, the movie gives a better focus on the love life and the passionate photographer life of Mahesh and they all were visualized very elegantly. Shyju Khalid once again mesmerizes with his frames. The backdrops of many scenes had the symbols of Idukki. Bijibal’s music is really beautiful and the BGMs were also catchy. Edits were also fine.

Maheshinte Prathikaaram is a movie rich in its humor, sensible with the motives and has characters that have dilemmas and insecurities we can relate to. It is a hilarious and cheerful cinema that is cent percent entertaining.