Buddy

The title Buddy was something that was given to depict the coolness of the movie and the content was about the bonding between an unusual father and son. But sadly, the coolness was limited to the main protagonist and the key relationship factor never really got enough time to make its foundation strong. Buddy directed by Raaj Prabhavathy Menon is a slow paced drama that can’t really spread happiness in the minds of its audience.

Vishnu has two mothers who were not interested in the typical marriage concepts. Even though the society falsely accused them as Lesbians, Vishnu wasn’t really bothered about them or even about his unknown father. On his 18^th birthday, the two mothers reveal the mystery behind his dad. The movie Buddy is basically about Vishnu’s journey to find his dad and the events that happens after their meeting.

Well, the recent sperm donation theme once again becomes the key factor in Buddy too. On a commercial aspect, the concept has its scope as the parents have that interesting diversity in character. But what’s disturbing here was the pace. It’s almost like travelling in a luxurious car for around 1 hour and you realize that you have covered only 1 km. The good visuals really give the movie a channel to impress the audience but the sluggish narration unsettles the rhythm. The film goes in to its mood only after the entry of Manikunju Thadikaran. It’s that Anoop Menon style of cool rendering that makes things go to that expected breezy level. But still the movie fails to concentrate on the father son relationship and spends more time on uninteresting events. That fight sequence involving the quotation team was totally irrelevant and endless. The other college show offs weren’t used to its full extent.

Raaj Prabhavathy Menon’s direction needs more polishing. He tries to make his visuals pleasant. But apart from Anoop Menon, he can’t really manage his actors and get them into that required zone. The script as I said hasn’t invested much time in strengthening the bonding between Manikunju and Vishnu. Instead they have tried to boost the main actor as a super hero. The first half script was totally on the dull side. The dialogs couldn’t crack the audience in the beginning phases, but towards the middle of the first half it started to get that rhythm. I liked the cinematography. The edits are satisfactory and the music is also interesting. One of the BGM track by Gopi Sundar reminded me of the song “Tu Hi Haqiqat” from Emraan Hashmi starrer Tum Mile.

On the performance side, its only Anoop Menon who manages to convince you completely and it’s mainly because of the nature of the character that lies in the safe zone of the actor in him. Midhun Murali is a promising aspect and he wasn’t that bad as the character Vishnu. Asha Sarath and Bhumika Chawla did their part nicely. Balachandra Menon was memorable, but the character wasn’t used much as I expected him to play an experienced guy. Brief appearances by Babu Antony, Arun, Sreekanth, Aju Varghese, Honey Rose, T G Ravi etc are there.

Overall, Buddy is too slow and lacks coolness. Even though I liked Anoop Menon in the movie, I can’t really call this an average one. I am giving the movie a 2.5/5 and thumbs up for Anoop Menon. What I really don’t understand is the sensor board’s decision to give an A certification.   The adult content in the film was much lesser than the present TV shows and almost all those slightly disturbing adultery in conversation were muted.

By Aswin Bharadwaj

Founder and editor of Lensmen Reviews.

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