What if you had an untouched liqueur collection the day the prime minister declared lockdown? Director CC Nithin, aka CC’s first movie Corona Dhavan, comes from this germ of an idea. Anyone can sense the possibility of a lot of humor in this particular premise, and the film is only focused on creating a comedy through the wit derived from situations. Even though some of the humor bits have their moments, in totality, they struggle to have that flow, making the whole movie look like a series of disjoint comedy bits.
Corona Dhavan is set against the backdrop of a village named Anathadam, and Vinu, also known as Dhavan Vinu, is our hero. His sister’s marriage was fixed, and as per the demand of his drunkard friends, he had stored some bottles of Dhavan (Jawan). But unfortunately, that marriage didn’t happen, and the same night lockdown got declared. With no access to get liquor, Vinu became the only hope for the entire village, and what we see in the movie is the efforts of the people to get the bottle from Vinu.
On a concept level, the story is indeed interesting as it offers the possibility to create something like those confusion-driven Priyadarshan comedies. But the script written by Sujai Mohanraj is finding it challenging to develop a solid link between the numerous subplots they have created. There are excise officers who want to seize all the liquor, the police are also after drunkards who broke the rules and gathered, a bar owner with a liquor addict brother wants to get just one bottle, and then there is this gang of Vinu’s friends who also wants at least a peg. The effort is to narrate all these tracks parallelly and merge them all in the climax for a possible laugh-riot. But because of the disjoint nature of each scene, even though you do laugh at certain jokes, the movie, on the whole, doesn’t become memorable.
Lukman Avaran, as Vinu, delivers a convincing performance, and he was able to get into the milieu of the Thrissur setting very comfortably. Sarath Sabha as Sumesh was one stand-out performance in the movie, and the way he pulled off humor with mere expressions was fun to watch. Johny Antony is there in his typical eccentric style. Irshad as the police officer, was also hilarious in his comical avatar. Sreenath Bhasi is there in a role that doesn’t really demand him. A division of the Angamaly Diaries cast is there, along with names like Dharmajan Bolgatty, Unni Nair, Vijilesh, and Aneesh Gopal. Seema G Nair and Sruthy Jayan are the only female presence in the cast, and their characters are largely inconsequential to the plot.
CC said before the movie’s release that people need not expect a layered film from him. But more than layers, I think the flow of scenes is essential for a comedy entertainer. The biggest demerit of Corona Dhavan is how it overindulges in each subplot. The amount of time it invested in creating comedy around the drone was so much that the liquor angle got forgotten at one point. The interval block kind of felt like the makers suddenly realized that they needed to focus on telling a story rather than showing episodes of Corona comedy.
Out of the multiple entertainers I watched this week, Corona Dhavan is easily the least annoying experience. But there isn’t a single joke that sort of stayed with me. It’s like an underwhelming mashup of all the Corona time jokes. Snippets of comedy scenes from this movie will work as clips on youtube or as reels. But in totality, it just feels like a hastily set-up assemblage.
Even though some of the humor bits have their moments, in totality, they struggle to have that flow, making the whole movie look like a series of disjoint comedy bits.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
