London Bridge

Luxury and some scenery of London and its outskirts is rich in almost all frames of London Bridge. But the very necessary thing in a romantic drama is missing here; romance. With a robotic heroin spoiling the party, this comeback film of Anil C Menon is a disappointment.

Vijay Das is a business man in UK who had a struggling past and right now he is flying high with various business endeavors. His caliber takes him to that position where another business tycoon one Mr C S Nambiarasks him to marry his daughter. Vijay compromises his greedy character for the sake of the fortune that awaits him. But an unexpected guest lands in Vijay’s life. How this new character shakes the plot and how it changes the character of our leading man is what the film talking about.

The film starts of smoothly without any big bangs. But it never manages to shift the gear and narrate things excitingly. The first half ends with our central protagonist in a certain dilemma about his feelings. But the approach towards it wasn’t that smooth. The cheesy interval sequence should have been conveyed as the initiation of romance but here that build up for a rooted romance was missing. In the second half of the film all we are seeing is two people in intense love and the tensions they have about the relationship due to other factors. If we were to feel for the characters in these sort of situations, there should have been enough sequences where we get to see the bonding of the couple.

Prithviraj is okay as the young business man. The actor was good in his lover avatar, but the greediness wasn’t conveyed in a convincing manner. Andrea was fine as the “generous” Pavithra. The biggest negative of the movie was Nanditha Raj. The actress has this innocent looks that kind of justifies her casting, but when it came to acting it was really a big bore. The expression on face and the expression that came from the dubbing artist were entirely different. And the actress saying all these dramatic dialogues without blinking her eyes and also without any change in expression at one point made me think that she was playing a blind character. Prathap Pothen was a good choice for the role of Mr Nambiar. Lena, Mukesh, Prem Prakash and Sunil Sukhada did their small parts nicely.

When it came to making, you wont see that old Anil C Menon styles in the film and the director manages to hold the cinema fairly well in the first half. But its in the second half were almost everyone in the technical team lost it. The writing cant establish the romance and the director cant add any of his magic to make things look better. The very lame usage (unnecessary at many occasions) of visual effects also disturbs the viewer. Cinematography from Jithu Damodar who captured the songs nicely was one rare positive of the movie. Songs were enjoyable from Rahul Raj. Malayali Singers would have been a better option in some songs. That song sang by Shaan clearly had some wrong pronunciation of malayalam words. I expected some sort of explanation for the weird fashion sense of Vijay Das but I couldn’t get any. Edits were okay and the BGM was a bit too much at occasions.

Overall London Bridge lacks the intensity that we wish to see in a romantic movie. My rating is 2/5 for London Bridge. One thing this movie offers its audience is some nice visuals of urban, semi urban and country side of UK.