Orayiram Kinakkalal

Like most of the movies based on this quick money making plans, the new Pramod Mohan movie Orayiram Kinakkalal may not be perfect. But it is an interesting fun film made with conviction. With humor and genuine emotions happening on screen, the movie is light at heart, humorously engaging and practically emotional too.

Sreeram is an NRI businessman who had plans to start a restaurant in Kochi. He had to face a lot of financial issues which put him in a difficult situation of living a high profile life even at the cost of taking money from money lenders as his loving wife and daughter doesn’t know his actual financial situation. His wife is pregnant and the need for money along with the threats from the one who gave him money puts Sreeram in a very difficult position. Jaison, a stranger he met invites Sreeram into a quick money making plan offering him a solid share that can solve a lot of issues for Sreeram. The movie Orayiram Kinakkalal is basically about the execution of that plan.

The good thing about Orayiram Kinakkalal is that it is not trying to be way too nonsensical about the chaos the script has at one point. I am saying this because that’s the phase where usually films of this genre mess up. Even the characterizations here have a rooted quirkiness; the character played by Saikumar for example. He is not a caricature, but still funny and peculiar. And the last half an hour of the movie sensibly infuses genuine emotions into the confusions and crookedness of the whole process. The multiple killings and other stuff does make it less of a possible scenario, but the treatment sort of distracts us from thinking about all those things.

Biju Menon is largely in his typical shade of tension comedy. The character of Sreeram can’t even remember his own wife’s name when he is tensed and the portions were we get to see the vulnerable side of Sreeram makes the character a bit more humane. Roshan Mathew is one talent I really look forward to and here again he impressed me with the easiness with which he portrayed Jaison. Sharu Varghese was good as Sherin. Kalabhavan Shajon was really impressive as CI Shajahan. Nirmal Palazhy was hilarious as Venu. Even though the character was small, Saikumar did make an impression. Sakshi Aggarwal, Sreeram, Krishna Kumar, Suresh Krishna etc. are the other main actors here.

Pramod Mohan overcomes the limitation of being a simple comedy flick by making the look and feel of the movie a bit more authentic. The characters are not speaking in a dramatic tone at any point and the twists in the tale are also not that drastic. Smaller details mentioned in the earlier portions get reiterated towards the last and it makes you appreciate the way they have packaged it even though the whole structure of the script is not that amusing. Kunjunni S Kumar’s frames are also quite interesting, especially in the first half were the static nature of frames and brightness of colors makes the movie quirky, pleasant and funny.  Cuts were good. The songs are fine, but they aren’t making an impact in the narrative. Bijibal’s background score suited the ambience.

On the whole I sort of enjoyed watching Orayiram Kinakkalal. It is not perfect by all means. But it has some good performances, witty humor and a story that is fairly engaging. A wholesome fun is there in this movie.

Rating: 3/5