In October 2023, a new term became familiar to the Malayali audience, thanks to director Ubaini and his film, Rahel Makan Kora. The term was “review bombing,” and the film’s makers even filed a case against numerous online platforms. For me, that was an unbearably outdated film, and when it was announced that Ubaini’s new movie Sukran was releasing in 2026, I was curious to know whether the first movie tanked because of the making or the writing. Well, with Sukran, Ubaini gives the audience clarity that his sensibilities about filmmaking are the problem. From choosing pathetic scripts and packaging them with template masala elements, Ubaini seems to be trying really hard to fit into the shoes of Kannan Thamarakkulam.
Our hero Nandu’s horoscope predicts that he will always get blamed for things that he never did. And we see that even in school, he was wrongly accused of stealing stuff from fellow students. The wrong label damaged his equation with the girl named Gayatri, whom he loved during school days. What we see here are the developments that happen in Nandu’s life when this girl returns to his life after many years.
When I reviewed the movie Magic Mushrooms, I mentioned that if it had been released a week later, Nadirshah would have added the Manamulla Poo Nulli reel to the movie to claim it was updated with the trends. Interestingly, the hero introduction scene of Vishnu Unnikrishnan’s close associate Bibin George in this movie has that song followed by a comedy scene where a group of stoned people have stopped their vehicle for imaginary people to cross the road. If you have seen Rahel Makan Kora, the above-mentioned scene is pretty much the moment where you realize that by the end of this movie, God will forgive you for a lot of mistakes you have made. I mean, how can someone who works in the industry and knows what kind of movies are becoming successful imagine that a wayward script like this will get accepted by the audience?
From the classic “You two, please talk. I will get the tea” from the mother character to “I know what to do next” from the hero, if I have to give a meme reaction to every 30 seconds of this movie, the fresh, fresh, fresh bit from Karikku will do justice. There is a scene in the movie where two police officers, played by Shine Tom Chacko and Tini Tom, are analysing CCTV footage to come to a finding, and I was like Chandler looking at these two Joe’s and screaming in my mind, “get there faster.” Towards the end of the movie, there is this Dance Club raid kind of scene where Shine Tom Chacko screams “Sound Off,” and trust me, you won’t be able to hold back your laughter. The kind of twist you see at that moment in the movie is so outright bad that you might feel the cliched twist you thought would happen was much better. The way the script holds the hero for five days without a mobile phone in Tamil Nadu should be added to the writing syllabus in film schools as an example of how not to write.
Bibin George, with his usual set of expressions, delivers a performance that matches the overly sentimental written content of this movie. I know that Chandunath has been part of poorly executed films. However, in those films, I have rarely felt him as an annoying addition. The usual “Bangalore Macha” best friend played by him looked like a creep, especially in that wedding song. Aadhiya Prasad plays the part of the female lead, and the only thing she has to do here is to cater to the stereotypical gaze of WhatsApp Uncles about a Malayali girl working in Bangalore, through dressing and makeup choices. Kottayam Nazeer is that brotherly mentor, overloaded with goodness. Azees Nedumangad gets to play a character who acts like Pulimurugan in one scene and then like Dashamoolam Dhamu in the next. The same thing happens with Shine Tom Chacko as well. In the introduction scene, he portrays the character with the kind of mature tone we have seen him do in movies like Soothravakyam. But after a point for no reason, he somewhat becomes that old, comical, unclear, impulsive Shine Tom Chacko that Neelakkuyil Media used to love.
If you are a new producer with no malicious intentions, please try to watch at least two newly released Malayalam movies every week and analyze how the theater responds to those movies, how many people are turining up, how much of those are free tickets, whether those movies are even surviving a full week, how much money they are making and whether any OTT platform is buying all those films. I am saying this because nowadays I can see producers delusionally claiming their movies are good, and it almost feels like they have not done proper ground research or even seen a movie in a long time. People are coming to the theaters to experience something that a reel or short can’t provide. While good entertainers provide something that is beyond the scope of short-format content, Ubaini thinks differently and delivered a movie that goes below the standards of a reel or a short.
