Oru Cinemakkaran

Oru Cinemakkaran is a movie that frequently deviates from our expectations. I can say that in a positive way, but in the case of this movie directed by Leo Thaddeus, that observation is on the negative sense. You might be expecting a story that deals with the struggle of a wannabe film maker, but Oru Cinemakkaran has a story that doesn’t really demand the protagonist to be a cine enthusiast.

Alby is this aspiring film maker who is right now working as an assistant director. He wants to make a feature film and things have not worked out well so far. He and his wife were lovers who left their families and got married. The day to day life of the couple has issues due to financial deficiencies, but overall it’s a smooth relationship. The film’s central conflict deals with a situation where Alby is running short of money and how certain unfortunate series of events complicates the situation.

I mentioned about frequent deviations of the film in the beginning. As the movie begins, we feel that it is the story of a young assistant director’s struggle to be an independent film maker. Then it shifts to certain family drama and towards the end of the first half it reaches its pivotal crisis point. After that the movie reveals some unexpected things and when you get a feeling that the story would have to do something with the deep emotional layers of characters, certain unconvincing twists happen and the movie ends up being a predictable film. The lack of realness is one major issue. The film at some areas desperately tries to be funny with dialogue jokes. Jennifer Antony appears in one scene just for a misogynistic stare. Even when the movie traverses through its key areas, there is this over used method of creating tension which we as an audience can easily predict.

Leo Thaddeus who earlier made 2011 Jayasurya movie Payyans still creates the new gen coolness in the same old artificial way. Some of the promos had given me a hope that the chemistry would be more organic. Well the lead pair has tried their best to perform naturally, but the sort of artificiality in the writing and the slightly over comical nature in some of the sequences featuring the families doesn’t suit the movie. The investigation part of the movie also has highs and lows. The twist and its complications might remind you of some of the thrillers that released 10 or 20 years back. I couldn’t understand the reason why Leo Thaddeus created that insensitive officer character played by Prashant Narayanan. The cinematography and edits are average. I loved the music by Bijibal (especially Ozhukiyozhuki).

Vineeth Sreenivasan is a limited actor and this particular role sort of falls in his comfort zone. There is earnestness in his performance which works in favor of the movie. Rajisha  Vijayan sort of repeats her style in Anuraga Karikkin Vellam and the girl has this way of saying lines very naturally. Both of them had a nice sync on screen. Other than these two other major characters are played by Renji Panicker, Vijay Babu, Lal and Anusree. Prashant Narayanan has played the role of the cop in his typical style.

Towards the end, producer Tomichan Mulakupadam appreciates this story as an emotional one and he even asks to reduce the class. Well, looking at the rest of the movie, Ranjan Abraham should have chopped that scene and jumped directly to the final shot.

Rating: 2/5