Gold Coins

Gold Coins directed by Pramod G Gopal tries desperately to be an earnest movie that tries to spread a positive message to the children. You can’t really blame the intent of the movie. But the problem is within the process of conceiving this idea in an effective way. I saw the movie with a minimal audience and majority of them were kids. By the time the movie was approaching the climax, even the kids were mumbling when the movie will end.

Achu and Kichu are brothers. They both have this dream of having a bicycle with gears and going to school in one of them. Due to the poor financial circumstances that dream never got fulfilled. In the midst of the routine life, the brothers go through some unexpected incidents and the things involved in it force them to go to the city of Ernakulam. Things get even more miserable when the brothers get separated in the big city. Their quest to find each other and the reason why they came to the city is what Gold Coins showing us.

The preaching is the problem here. The verbal approach to convey ideas through extremely dramatic dialogues that just doesn’t sound authentic when kids utter them makes this film an emotionally less affecting experience. The elaborate events also make the focus a bit blurred. From the school life to carnival and then to the city of Ernakulam and the various events happening there, the film goes on and on without much of an excitement. Those of you have seen similar juvenile themes can easily predict who the God is and how it will all end. The success was highly dependent on how realistic the treatment would be, but sadly you don’t get to see that warmth in the making.

Master Vasudev and Master Gopal have portrayed the lead roles. Both of them have cute faces and innocent emotions. But like I said in the beginning, the kind of drama the conversations and situations have is so huge. And the poor kids can’t really carry that burden. Same was the case with the other kids in the film. Sunny Wayne appears briefly in the movie as the quintessential God reference. The cast of the movie has names like Meera Nandan, Sai Kumar, Tessa, Sujith Shankar, Anil Nair, Hemanth Menon and Joy Mathew.

The melodrama in the writing was not rectified when it came to the making of the movie. As I already said, you can’t really blame the movie for its intent. The idea is to lecture kids about being honest, hardworking etc. But the making is a bit wayward. The script becomes too convoluted in the second half and instead of intrigue it just creates a feeling that the movie is lingering on totally irrelevant areas. Cinematography is pretty average. The prayer song was a good one, but the rest didn’t make any impression. Ouseppachan blatantly copies Mankatha Theme at some areas. The cuts were too sharp.

Gold Coins have an intention to cater something positive. But the extremely theatrical making and the predictable and complex build up towards the goal makes it an underwhelming experience.

Rating: 2/5