Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu

The premise of the film Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu has a playground and people surrounding it. The elaborate length of the film may make you think that it is too much, but it is actually a clever move to make us feel closer to that playground and the characters in it. With realistic and humorous conversations happening on screen, Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu has a positive vibe to its credit.

Baiju is a government employee who is more interested in playing cricket and other games in the local playground with his fellow guys who are younger to him. I can’t really say what the conflict in the movie is as it pursues most of its runtime in showing us the stories of each character in the film. Ultimately it sheds light on the less discussed and very significant question of the importance of having a playground.

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If you analyze the film peripherally, you might feel that it has lots of humorous moments and they haven’t managed to make a great story out of the idea. But if you look at it closely, there is a connection this playground has with all this. The improvement of a mentally challenged person, the love story of a guy, a kid who lives in a flat that restricts him from playing games like football and cricket, a boy who manages to reach the top level by playing the game he liked the most, a boy who overcomes his biggest grief in life by being social, an old man who has a routine of quarreling with those who played in the ground, an NRI who gets happiness after spending some time in that ground and many such subplots are there in this film which has a connection with the playground. Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu shows us all these things and with a less preachy approach it manages to show us the significance of a public play area. Along with these subplots that are relevant to its idea, there were a few that sort of stood out. But those subplots were also quite enjoyable because of the humor and organic feel they had.

Ranjan Pramod who has made a lot of commercially appealing movies in the past approaches this movie in a promising realistic way. The sync sound format of the film and the repartee we get to see on screen creates a lot of hilarious moments that looks and sounds genuine rather than a desperate comedy track. Baiju who is considered as an irresponsible guy is actually someone who takes initiatives to things general people consider as unnecessary. From cricket kit to early morning movie show, he is a peculiar yet very normal middle class man. The film builds a lot of nice sub stories which are memorable and has a space of its own. The family background of Baiju and the bride hunt of Unni may not have a direct connection with the core issue of the film, but there is a connect we feel in the sentiments of those scenes. Prasanth Raveendran’s frames capture the life of the characters effectively. Bijibal’s music was good and the film isn’t depending too much on the background music to create its moments.

In the beginning portions you might feel that the nature of Baiju is the typical style of Biju Menon, but as the movie progresses, it uses the actor in him beyond the usual humor side. His performance in every occasion is quite natural. All the other actors except for Padmaraj Ratheesh look very natural. Deepak Parambol, Aju Varghese, Hannah, Indrans, Vijayaraghavan, Janardhanan, Alencier Ley, Dileesh Pothan, Hareesh, Chethan, Nebish Benson and a lot of others who are there in the movie looks perfect for the role and a special mention to debutant Sreekala who was paired opposite to Aju Varghese.

Because of its length and elaborate storytelling, Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu may not impress you immediately. But if you take some time and analyze each subplot, you will definitely find something in each story that sort of substantiate Baiju’s request at the end of the film.

Rating: 3.5/5 (Read at least the last paragraph if you have simply scrolled down all the way down to check the rating)