Tuesday Nov 11 2008, Trivandrum

Twenty20

Directed by - Joshi

Produced by - Dileep

Music by - Suresh Peters, Bernie Ignatious, Alphonse

Casts - Mammootty, Mohanlal, Suresh Gopi, Jayaram, Dileep, Prithviraj, Mukesh, Jagathy Sreekumar, Jayasurya, Manikuttan, Kunchacko Boban, Siddique, Suraaj Venjaramoodu, Kavya Madhavan, Bhavana, Gopika, Nayantara etc.

Starring - ,

‘Twenty20’ was an eagerly awaited movie, for obvious reasons. And when at last the film has been released, it seems to be living up to expectations.

Well, that too is a rather relative thing. For if your expectations had been rather realistic, you’d of course feel vindicated. On the contrary, if you had rather unrealistic (?) expectations, the film may leave you disillusioned.
That brings us to another question. What would we expect from a film like ‘Twenty20’, which seems the coming together of all popular Malayalam stars and which has been scripted by the Udayakrishna-Sibi.K.Thomas duo, the writers of films like ‘CID Moosa’, ‘Thuruppugulaan’ etc? The answer to this question is the key to our liking or not liking ‘Twenty20’.
So, what is ‘Twenty20’ all about?
Though ‘Twenty20’ was earlier expected to be an investigative thriller, it’s more of a revenge drama, with Mohanlal playing the role of Devaraja Prathapa Varma, a spice-dealer, who has much more to do than just deal in spices and Mammootty playing an ace advocate named Ramesh Nambiar. (Hey, hasn’t he played this many times before?). And the trigger happy Suresh Gopi is there, in his favourite role, that of a super-cop, as Antony Punnekaadan IPS. And supporting them, or rather brought in as sort of props for the key players, are a whole lot of popular actors, all members of AMMA, which produces the movie. There is action, there is humour to some extent, there are songs, and there is a bit of a drama element. But for the story, you’ll have to keep on guessing as to whether there is a solid storyline at all.

Coming to the story, we find that Antony Punnekaadan, the firebrand cop, is bent on arresting Arun (Indrajith), a young medical student who is allegedly involved in a murder. Arun happens to be the grandson of Viswanatha Menon (Madhu), a retired Supreme Court judge. Menon’s family is an affluent family too, with his son Madhavan (Siddique) being an influential politician. Though Madhavan tries to save Arun using his influence, Antony nabs him finally, but not on his own merits, but on account of the hint that he gets from a gang of thieves (Harisri Ashokan, Bijukuttan, Cochin Haneefa and Kalpana), who happen to stay in Viswanatha Menon’s house, disguised as servants and planning to make away with the valuables there. And then comes in Advocate Ramesh Nambiar, who holds Viswanatha Menon is high esteem. Ramesh Nambiar saves Arun, by dint of his shrewd intelligence. But things are destined to take an unexpected turn. Arun is stabbed and killed on the road and Antony Punnekaadan arrests spice-dealer Devaraja Prathapa Varma for that. What happens then forms the rest of the plot.

It can’t be said that Mohanlal, Mammootty or Suresh Gopi have fared poor in their performances. They have done their respective characters in their respective styles. And of course of the three, it’s Mohanlal who scores high. It’s perhaps the character her portrays, which suits his physique, image and acting caliber to the fullest, that he manages to outdo the others in certain sequences at least. Jayaram fits in well, in a role tailor made for him, as Dr. Vinod Bhaskar, who teaches at a Medical College. Of course he doesn’t appear like someone who teaches, but he has done his part quite convincingly, in his characteristic style (he never goes beyond that!). Dileep plays Karthik Verma, a medical college student, who is the younger brother of Devaraja Prathapa Varma and who appears only in the post-interval section, and that too for a short timeTo a great extent, Dileep does what he has always excelled in doing- engaging in his trademark kind of verbal humour