Minnaminnikoottam review

Cast: Naren, Jayasurya, Indrajith, Meera Jasmin, Roma, Samvritha Sunil, Radhika

Director: Kamal

Producer: Rakhi Ram

Lyrics: Anil Panachooran

Cinematography: Manoj Pillai

Editing: K.Rajagopal

Art Direction: Gokul Das



Minnaminnikoottam, director Kamal's latest offering, is fairly good as a youthful film, but owing to some flaws that affect the totality of the film, may not make a big impact at the box office.

The film tells the story of a group of young IT professionals - Abhilash, Maanikunju, Charulatha, Rosemary, Siddharth, Mumtaz, Kalyani and Paachan. It begins from where Charulatha, now in Singapore, gets an e-mail from one of her friends inviting her to India. And when she reaches India we are taken in retrospect to the past. Abhilash and Charulatha were in love; and so were Maanikunju and Rosemary. Siddharth was married to Mumtaz.

Abhilash was from a very affluent family. His father was a very influential bureaucrat. But Charulatha belonged to an ordinary family. Her father Balan Menon was a bank employee. This created problems in the lives of the young lovers. What eventually happened forms the rest of the plot. Interwoven into this is also the love story of Maanikunju and Rosemary, on a parallel and rather insignificant level.

The plot as well as the narration is good, but there are flaws that stand out and do considerable harm to the film as a whole. The most notable of these is that the lead characters fail to impress us. Naren as Abhilash and Meera Jasmine as Charulatha are disappointing. There are many scenes where Naren's dialogue delivery falters. Meera's character, that of Charulatha, seems to lack soul.

Roma has given a good performance as the lively Rosemary, while Jayasurya is OK as Maanikunju, a character that suits him and his style of acting. Indrajith as Siddharth and Samvritha as Mumtaz have nothing much to do. So is the case with Radhika (of Classmates fame), who becomes Kalyani. One can't help wondering why Anoop Chandran had been cast in the role of Paachan, a character that doesn't impress us at all and which offers him little scope to show his comic skills. The others in the cast are just passable.

The songs in Minnaminnikoottam are not bad, but not extraordinary either. Cinematography by Manoj Pillai is good and suits the mood and tempo of the film. And so is the editing. Minnaminnikoottam is colourful, but it lags in places making the front benchers resort to occasional booing. The story offers nothing spectacular. It would have been a much better film if the scenarist (here director Kamal himself) had paid more attention to the dialogues and the characterization. The film also lacks the light humour characteristic of Kamal films. Having said these, it must also be said that Minnaminnikoottam, though it may not appeal to the youth, may find a market with the family audience, if properly marketed.