Manglish

It’s a very typical Mammootty film that I believe matches with the expectations of fans of the star rather than the admirers of the actor. Manglish directed by Salam Bappu won’t bore you and it won’t make you excited. With some slick dialog humor in the narrative, Manglish is a onetime watch.

Malik Bhai is a fish merchant in Kochi and is an influential person as he has some direct links with some of the powerful politicians in the city. His first marriage was an unsuccessful one and he lives with his only sister and her daughter. As part of a real estate deal, Malik Bhai is asked to clear a home stay in Kochi were a foreigner Michelle is staying. As the political scenario is fragile Malik Bhai has to deal the issue very carefully. Malik Bhai’s efforts to communicate with Michelle for a settlement and the events that happen after this is what the film focusing on.

If you look at the character of Michelle in this movie, it has some similarities with the character played by Sneha in Thuruppugulan. With a title like Manglish, we do expect a lot of fun in terms of problems surrounding the communication of characters. But the script written by Riyas fails to focus much on this Manglish factor and thus this movie becomes less unique. There is a phase in the second half of the movie where Malik Bhai puts some efforts to learn the language of Michelle and the scenes around this thought were in fact funny. If they showed more focus on this English learning thing, Manglish would have easily got a fresh feel.

Mammootty fits into the character of Malik Bhai quite easily and it is not a character that has any material to test this great actor. Caroline Beck was nice as Michelle. The writer could have used a bit simpler Malayalam for the character of Michelle. Even with the limited number of scenes she had, Srinda was really impressive. Tiny Tom did his part nicely with that humorous character. Characters played by P Balachandran and Joju George were a bit annoying. Vinay Forrt, Sathaar, Sunil Sukhada etc were good in their characters.

After attempting a serious theme in Red Wine, Salam Bappu has shifted his focus to a light hearted film and the treatment he has given to the subject is an orthodox one. Script by Riyas is not a boring one but the excitement is quite less and it couldn’t generate any sort of curiosity. Humor was there in the dialogs, especially in the second half. Cinematography was good from Pradeesh M Varma. Edits weren’t that smooth. That Ulla Ulla song was good. Daffodil song wasn’t good in terms of tune and relevance.

Overall Manglish from Salam Bappu is a passable film that won’t bore you. My rating for Mammootty’s eid release Manglish is 2.5/5. It’s neither underwhelming nor appealing.