Malaysia to Amnesia

I have been hearing this demand from many film lovers that they wish to see an out-and-out comedy movie these days as every film released on OTT platforms was thrillers. Well, that demand is a genuine one as in these challenging times we really need some movies that can cheer us up. Radha Mohan’s new comedy Malaysia to Amnesia is actually an attempt to grab some space in that slot, but what you end up watching is a comedy that you will just giggle and forget. And I feel that giggle also comes from our desperation to laugh rather than the creative writing.

Arun, a Chennai-based textile owner, is our central character. He is married to Sujatha and has a child. He has this extramarital affair with a girl named Bhavana, who lives in Bangalore. One day Arun decides to go and spend some time with Bhavana, and at home, he lies that he is going to Malaysia for a business trip. But coincidentally, the Malaysian flight got disappeared that night, and now Arun has this mammoth task of convincing his family about how he managed to “escape.” What you see in the movie are those efforts.

The premise seems to be interesting for a situational comedy. But when you can see the movie not having enough flesh to give a solid structure to the skeleton, it starts to feel fragile. That’s the problem with Malaysia to Amnesia. It is very evident that they shot this movie within the constraints of the new normal. But it felt like a movie that was made out of desperation rather than a creative explosion. Tamil movies a while ago used to have these Vadivelu-Vivek-Senthil sidetrack comedy scenes, and the witty sequences in Malaysia to Amnesia somewhere fall in that category even though it managed to blend in with the already silly plot.

Sathi Leelavathi, Masti, Chandrettan Evideya, and so many more movies are already there in this space which deals with this cheating husband getting into trouble and later realizing how loving his wife is. But what made most of them interesting was the engagement factor in the writing which kept us curious about the next move. Here those moves are too eccentric. I am not looking for logic here. We do get a sense that realism is not the intent of the movie. But some of the subplots or pointless sequences are so bizarre that you can sense the makers struggling really hard to include content (The whole Maya Akka chapter is one example). The movie starts off giving us a feeling that we are in for a Venkat Prabhu movie. But slowly, towards the end, when the “goodness” starts to kick in, we will get this assurance that it is, after all, a Radha Mohan movie.

To motivate Vaibhav, Radha Mohan has made Karunakaran’s character praise his acting skills multiple times in the movie. And yet, he is struggling to get into the grooves of the comedy. Karunakaran is trying his best to give life to the poorly written jokes, and to an extent, that’s what makes the movie slightly engaging. MS Bhaskar’s uncle character is supposed to be annoying. While the writing makes sure that he feels annoying to the viewers, Bhaskar manages to find a few moments to display his acting skills. Vani Bhojan plays the role of the highly gullible typical homemaker.

Malaysia to Amnesia is a kind of nothing movie. I won’t say I hated this movie. Because hate comes from a different place, this one cannot create any sort of emotions in you. You and they got bored, they decided to make a movie, you decided to watch the film, and ultimately you paid the price (literally and figuratively).