Street Lights

Once a film finished its subplot sequences in first 15 minutes, the only thing the audience wanted to see is how it is going to end. Which doesn’t mean the film needs some suspense elements at the end. Yes! I’m talking about Mammootty’s latest release ‘Street Lights .Debutant Shamdath Sainudheens’  ‘Street Lights’ is a film that starts off promisingly and then goes off tangent all of a sudden.

A necklace is the central element of the story. This jewellery gets robbed by a gang of thieves and a police officer is secretly investigating about this case. It is difficult to put the synopsis without explaining the story in detail. So let me put it in the simplest way by saying this movie is about the investigation to find the missing necklace.

A few stories are getting intertwined here in a strange manner, on one fine day. The build-up is quite fine, and you get all perked up and excited, and when the final disclosure does not match up to the setting, the effects are catastrophic. The end product isn’t therefore half as intriguing as it should have been, given the structuring of the plot. What usually happens in films of these genres is that the individual stories tend to be too simple and the connecting links are often bizarre or at times, even silly. Here too, curious coincidences tend to happen that weaves the stories eventually.

Street Lights is one movie that does have a fine base plot, but one which lost much in translation. The director seems to be the culprit, who couldn’t bring any thrilling aspects or technical wizardry including good visuals or editing patterns. The film is over-written; characters explain everything in words when a mere change of expression would do that. The screenplay and dialogues by Fawas Mohammed fails to impress and doesn’t pack much in the final reels. May be a case of failed mise-en-scene, the movie also doesn’t feature any intended gags in its screen time of 128 minutes.

Mammootty looks incredibly handsome and though the role does not throw any fresh challenges to him as an actor, slips into the portrayal of the troubled crime branch officer with remarkable ease. Stunt Silva barely makes much of an impression and Actors like Soubin Shahir, Dharmajan and Hareesh Perumanna repeats their trademark style.

Technically, Yakzan Gary Perera- Neha Nair’s background music is highlight of the movie though Adarsh Abraham’s music tracks didn’t impress much. The editing by Manoj and camera work by Sadat Sainudheen was just about OK.

So to sum up, Street Lights is just another investigative crime story (well, they are categorized it as crime story everywhere, but i found nothing seriously criminal here) where some events take place during the first few scenes and then nothing much happen until the final few scenes where the mystery is unveiled.

Rating: 2/5