Karinkunnam 6s

Karinkunnam 6s has followed the template of every sports movie you might have seen. The struggle of the coach, a team that lacks unity, foul plays, the struggle within etc. has been reused by Deepu Karunakaran to make this sports-drama. And when you look at it in totality, Karinkunnam 6s is a pleasing one time watch with highs and lows to its credit.

It is based on this fictional Volleyball league called VPL (Volleyball premier league). Anoop Menon’s character (forgot the name) had this dream of conducting such a tournament and make his team Karinkunnam 6s a part of it. But the selfless wishes of the man had a lot of obstacles to pass and the movie Karinkunnam 6s shows us the effort of his wife Vandana to build a team within a short span of time from a set of criminals serving their jail term. What leads her to the jail and how she finally manages to do it is what this movie talking about.

To be honest, until the jail comes in to the screenplay, Karinkunnam 6s is way too dramatic and unappealing. But after that undercooked first 20 minutes or so, the movie gets the rhythm and sails pretty much smoothly. It isn’t flawless, but there are these cheer worthy moments in this movie that sustains the energy the film gets from its unique backdrop. And by reinventing the premise by adding practical hardships in to it, Deepu Karunakaran adds novelty to his story. The deviation the movie gets due to the characters played by Major Ravi and Babu Antony gives a sense of practicality to the plot. While the gaming part of the movie is predictable for us, the drama surrounding it was kept interesting by the director.

Manju Warrier has got the ease and grace to be the good looking, smart and hopeful coach. She depicts the vulnerabilities without any excessive drama. No offence to Anoop Menon, but the actor him in looked very inadequate to scream “we are sportsmen!”  Coming to our players, Babu Antony is more of an action guy here and he has done that part smoothly. Baiju offers some good fun with his style of talking which has this lazy attitude. It was good to see the state award winner Sudev Nair in an important character, but it was also a bit sad to see him play such small parts in movies. Jacob Gregory and Santhosh Keezhattoor were good. Padmaraj Ratheesh was mostly in the crowd. Suraj Venjaramood has played the role of the police officer impressively. Sreejith Ravi and Nandu were also quite nice. My favorite performer in Karinkunnam 6s is undoubtedly Mr. Sudheer Karamana. His character had that aggression, sensitiveness and desire and the actor succeeded in giving all that attributes to his character.

Deepu Karunakaran’s making style isn’t that updated. The theatrical drama is there in conversations and certain other instances. But luckily for him, a major chunk of the screenplay demands the drama part to be a little rough with dialogues and that saves the movie from being a preachy looking sports movie. The movie has an elaborate plot and Deepu has definitely skipped a lot of explanations. Like I said in the beginning, the film has used its premise to create practical hurdles. There are certain commercially catchy scenes in the movie which received whistles and claps from the audience. Editing and cinematography are two real tough tasks in my opinion for a movie like this which has the task of making the matches look lively. With multiple cameras they have shot the game portions in a lively manner. Edits also had the pace to keep it gripping. The chances of people finding errors after the DVD release and posting it on FB groups are quite high. So Mr. Saajan, be ready to face that. Loved the music and background score from Rahul Raj.

So overall, Karinkunnam 6s has this typical sports drama nature. But still the premise and characters makes it interesting and in totality the movie has enough moments to please you. It has a fairly nice content and a good enough making along with satisfying performances.

Rating : 3/5