Hangover

Much like the latest Asif Ali film Pakida, Hangover directed by debutant director Sreejith Sukumaran also attempts to take the story to a social commitment level, but here the events are bizarre. With a  friendship that desperately tries to look cool and some attempts to show the negative side of some people using the old T G Ravi – Jose Prakash film formulas, this film fails to entertain you. A few counter dialogues from Bhagath and one particular scene of an irrelevant character played by Dileesh Pothan where the only things that could create a wave among the audience.

Well the story basically revolves around the four friends Aby, Noor, Appu and Kiran. Noor is an aspiring film maker Aby, Appu and Kiran are fundamentally aimless. Aby’s lover decides to breakup with him and only by the time when she invites him for her engagement Aby realizes his love for her. Their journey meet Aby’s girlfriend and patch up things turns out to be a totally different ride with many complications. How it all happens and how they manage to escape from all this is what the movie talking about.

In a recent interview I have seen the director saying that the movie was inspired from certain real life incidents he had to face when he went for a trip with his friends. If that is the case either these guys are unsung heroes of the modern era or the director and his friends were drunk too much to do all this nonsense things. The movie begins with bubble romance that breaks up and frankly there is no sense of real love anywhere in that slice of the story and the poor music and choreography only increases unreal feel of it. Then the movie abruptly shifts to another zone of murder, revenge and social responsibility and if the makers where sitting next to me I would poke them and ask “dude! Seriously?”. From that onwards it is a Karmayodha act with beta quality and there is no real going back to the back stories of our leading men after that.

Maqbool Salmaan didn’t show any hope with his slight shift to do comedy but his drunkard act in the beach wasn’t that boring. Thankfully Bhagath was able to provide a breeze of humour with his performance, even though the writing wasn’t that great. Shine Tom Chako fails to shine as that intellectual aspiring film maker. Govind Krishna who doesn’t have much to do is just about ok. Archana Gupta showed a better performance when compared to Kaanchi. Shritha’s role has importance in the storyline but there was very little to perform. Dileesh Pothan, Jose and some more are there in the star cast.

The technical side of the movie seems to be a total let down. Sreejith  cant create any sort of passing fun with his making and the script written based on the story written by the director offered very less to show any variety. As I said earlier, the script is desperately trying to create the “cool dude” humour and all the dramas unfolding in the second half just cant be termed as intriguing or engaging. Cinematography isn’t great. Editing was poor. The background score was awkward and the music also kept a low standard.

So to sum up Hangover wasn’t fun at all for me. Some weak performances and a chaotic script that tries to include the social commitment idea in a very lame way makes this move forgettable. The under two hours run time is the biggest plus of this AOPL production. The rating for Hangover is 1.5/5.