Simhasanam

Shaji Kailas is desperate to get back to the industry with something big. But his reluctance to accept the fact that audience won’t accept cliché topics has once again given him a poor result. Written and directed by Shaji Kailas himself, Simhasanam is a creative mixture of many hit movies of Shaji Kailas. Even though the buzz is that the movie is the remake of naaduvazhikal, in actual it is a mix of Aaram Thampuran, Narasimham etc using the basic structure of Naaduvaazhikal.

The movie revolves around Chandragiri Madhavan and his son Arjun. Madhavan is a feudal lord who literally runs a parallel or alternate Government in his land. He takes good care of everyone in that village. He has backdrop of guns and violence as he is the administrator of the area. He is a father who does not want to see weapons in his son’s hand. In a particular phase of life all his enemies joins together to end his feudal era. How he fights against this and how his son comes to the lime light and shows his support and becomes a worthy successor of a fighting father is the basic plot of Simhasanam.

As the plot shows, it is a simple revenge story with abundant action, rhyming small dialogs and complex long dialogs with less full stops. The only thing that works in the movie is the dialog delivery of both Sai Kumar and Prithviraj. Apart from that there is nothing in the movie that can be said as fresh or interesting. As I mentioned earlier, the script is a mix of Aaram Thampuran and Narasimham. There is a romantic portion in the movie involving Aiswarya Devan and Vandana. This one will remind everyone the sequences in Aaram Thampuran where Unnimaya observes Nayanthara and how Jagannathan teases her. The final result in the romance and that portion were the Thullal artist is brought to the home and all are a creative remake of Aaram Thampuran. The attempts and efforts by Arjun to free his father from police custody have shades of Narasimham. The rituals and all in the climax again goes back to Aaram Thampuran. The backdrops to the villains are pretty much similar to the typical Udayakrishna- Sibi K Thomas or Benny P Nayarambalam scripts.

On screen, Prithviraj has delivered a strong performance as the strong young man who loves his father and talks boldly. Prithviraj’s performance can’t be blamed, but his selection of script can be surely blamed. Sai Kumar again impresses the audience with a powerful performance as Madhavan. Even though the female protagonists don’t have much role in the film Aiswarya Devan and Vandana has done their part quite neatly. Veterans like Thilakan, Siddiq also delivered an impressive show. While Riyas Khan delivered a good show as SP, actor Devan disappointed with poor dialog delivery.

Off screen, direction wise Shaji Kailas has gone to the old school of freaky cameras, hush hush sound effects and dialog oriented zooming. Script has its flaws. The death scene of Madhavan was shown in two different ways. Cinematography also follows a typical Shaji Kailas style of tilted camera angles. Don Max can take the credit for slicing the visuals with nice pace. Music isn’t that great. The choreography of “Chempada..” song was impressive but the Omeyo.. song was a totally unwanted number. Fights also were quite average.

Overall, Simhasanam is an outdated mix of old hit movies. Only die hard Prithviraj fans will find this movie interesting. Simahasanam is not written and directed by Shaji Kailas. It is arranged and organized by him. I would have given a 2.5. But the outdated storyline makes me reduce the rating to 2/5.