Ladies and Gentleman

A story that overflows with contents that are hard to sync in easily, that’s what I felt about director Siddique’s latest Malayalam movie Ladies and Gentleman starring super star Mohanlal. A predictable and simple one liner story with charmless suspense is told in a stretched out way with good humor and catchy performances. Mohanlal’s graceful performance wasn’t enough for this multi starrer average flick to make the audience smile at the end.

The plot revolves around Chandra Bose, a drunkard who is terribly missing his wife’s presence in his life. He has his own rules and perspectives about positive thoughts, living and all. One day he happens to meet a young guy Sharath, who was about to commit suicide. After hearing his problem, Chandra Bose promises Sharath that he would help him. Along with the close circle of Sharath, Chandra Bose forms a team and helps them in establishing a firm. Story basically is the issues that happen in this firm and how the young guns help their guardian Chandra Bose in getting back to a normal personal life.

Well, the basic problem in the story is that the beginning and ending seems to have no connection. Many of the characters and scenarios change drastically as the story goes forward and the movie keeps on changing its tone. They have tried to project Chandra Bose as a protector or guardian, but sadly the powerless writing just won’t convince you to imagine him in that position. Lots of scenes like the entry of Mamtha’s Anu into the team, Return of Sharath back to the team towards the climax and the whole wife flashback seems unbaked.

On screen, Mohanlal is pretty cool as the drunkard Chandra Bose who sarcastically approaches life’s ups and downs. His performance will surely remind us of his similar outing in movies like Ayal Kadhyezhuthukayanu and Hello. Meera Jasmine has very few scenes in the movie including the songs. On the performance side she was good enough to convince the audience but I don’t know what prompted Siddique to shoot her in such bizarre makeup. Mamtha and Padmapriya have done a satisfactory performance. Mithra Kurien manages to make a pleasing impact. Kalabhavan Shajon is a smart performer and along with Mohanlal he has done complete justice to his role. New comer Krish was a letdown especially in dialog delivery. Casting Ganesh Kumar as Mamtha’s dad was a courageous decision. Manoj K Jayan, Krishna Kumar and Sivaji Guruvayoor also did a good performance in their small appearances.

In the making, well the director in Siddique has done a fairly good job, but in the case of Ladies and Gentleman, the writer in him seems to be confused on how to traverse the entire plot. The twists and turns in the story weren’t that easy to convince us as a fresh one. The dialogs are pretty cool and positive but apart from Mohanlal no one was able to render it correctly. Cinematography of Satheesh Kurup is pleasing. The songs aren’t that bad, but the timing of the majority of songs wasn’t that cool especially the title song. BGM was satisfactory.

Overall, Ladies and Gentleman is a movie for the fans of the complete actor. An aimless script derails the movie from its goal. Acknowledging the performance of Mohanlal and the typical Siddique humor, I am giving this Vishu release a generous 2.5/5. The movie is much better than its teasers and if you can keep your expectation levels low, you may even enjoy it.