God Say

Remember Lage Raho Munnabhai from Rajkumar Hirani? The movie God Say starring Vinay Forrt in the lead role is actually a broader version of the kind of Gandhigiri aspect we saw in Munnabhai. Set in the 90’s, this film’s first half mocks the society satirically while the slightly over the top conceptualization of second half drags it in to complications.

Harishchandran works in the All India Radio (late 90’s). Even though he has this reputed job, he was an alcoholic. He mixed alcohol in everything he ate and the lifestyle was a mess. A prominent program presenter in AIR who used to speak about Gandhi’s ideologies in the prime time in a program named Gandhi Margam retires and the station head decides to give that program to Harishchandran and gifted him the famous “My Experiments with Truth”. How this changes his life and how the society reacts to his changes is what this satire named God Say talking about.

The makers Sherrey and Shyju aren’t trying to be preachy at any point. The humor in the first half of the movie flows naturally and the sarcasm in scenes is quite interesting. There is a scene where our hero warns about the consequences of the decision taken by the central government and the characters in the movie are making fun of his long sight. While such mockery of the society for its inability to foresee the consequences of political decisions hits the bullseye, the over sophisticated second half that tries to be symbolic couldn’t be that hard hitting. Even while such takes make God Say a bit mushy, Vinay Forrt’s superb performance keeps us engrossed to the screen.

Yes, the best thing about the film in my opinion is the flawless performance of Vinay Forrt. From being the aimless drunkard guy to transforming in to that concerned mature citizen, he adds so much to the character to make it look real than a mere caricature. Like I said, even while the movie moves away from the sarcastic tone, Vinay’s performance had that vibrancy to keep us occupied. Indrans shows his caliber in the role of a Gandian. It was good to see Joy Mathew having a dialect that is less Kozhikkodan. Mythili wasn’t a misfit for that kind of an eccentric character. Surjith was also good.

The makers have treated the first half in a way we could understand what they are trying to achieve. The content is wider and the teasing is harder in those areas. As the script reduces the satire nature and moves in to a more neo dramatic feel towards the end of the film that solid connect they established effectively in the first half gets weakened. The decaying of the statue and the subsequent symbolism is understandable, but it isn’t that powerful. The frames are largely static. Music is in that unconventional side.

The satiric nature of God Say’s first half is quite gripping and the symbolism in the second half is a bit hard to digest. If you have that openness to look into the humor, you can see that it has got good layers of contemporary relevance.

Rating: 3/5