Thread: Jana Gana Mana ~ An Opinion

Venue ~ PVR, Ampa Skywalk, Chennai
Audi ~ 01
Showtime ~ 02:35 PM
Status ~ 90%

After fast forwarding loads of portions in the cringy Queen, I thought Dijo Jose is going to be another new gen director who is going to be benefited by gimmicks like "Nenjinakathe Lalettan..". Also Prithvi's recent choice post pandemic were not impressive either. After seeing some positive reviews from fellow members of SS, I decided to give it a try (also good booking status added to it).

When you focus on what Dijo wants to tell, its clear inspiration from old political movies like Rang De Basanti, Aayitha Ezhuthu etc. eventhough its not a copy by any means. Sharis Mohammed (writer) along with Dijo made it look like an FB politics (ie inspired from sensational FB posts) more than being serious one with conviction. Now just see how dubious it looks. We have a place called Ramanagara which is situated in Karnataka. The future CM is a Tamilian. And the courtroom drama which takes place in that location happens to be in Malayalam & English. This basic structure show how juvenile the thought is. And the only reason I can find is the current trend of "right bashing" which we see in movies down south & webseries. I would have admired the guts of the makers if they dared to do tell the same tale in Kerala with a red color. But just like any mainstream commercial filmmaker, the idea is to appease the audience and not to provoke them. I don't personally find it a big flaw but Dijo is unable to get out of the filmy structure which looked extremely artificial at many areas especially the condolence speech (which looked stupid) and the courtroom drama. Also the supporting characters are black or white (unless Part 2 turns out to be a different tale) & of course the laughable cameo from the director pushing his students for a nationwide revolution.

Despite these flaws, the movie was engaging and entertaining almost majority portions. The investigation scenes were meticulously shot and written and the courtroom drama did possess the punch of a mainstream movie despite a Queen hangover. The huge credit goes to the conviction at which Prithviraj handled those scenes. His dialogue delivery and body language was top notch. The unpredictable portions were not forced at any points. Also I loved the way the movie talked about the negatives of mob justice and media mishandling of an issue. One of my fav scene was the how a news agency gave importance of two similar issues according to its sensational possibilities. The breakneck speedy narration added to the engaging factor.

Speaking about performances, many might think Suraaj scored more. But I believe Prithvi got an extremely tough character to portray and I believe only he could have pulled it off after the Big 3 (Mammotty, Mohanlal & Suresh Gopi). This is where acting takes over behaving and something I don't see much in new gen actors like Fahad, Tovino, DQ, Pranav etc. His conviction and command over diction was a treat to watch. While Suraaj was simply terrific as a police officer. Someone who used to play loud, idiotic cop roles, this is a revelation. Mamtha Mohandas was good while Shammi Thilakan looked a bit irritating in that weird get up and imitating his legendary father. G M Sundar was terrific in his role along with Shaari. On other hand Vincy Aloysius was loud and looked artificial just like her character. Dhruvan was bad as expected .

Songs didn't play much of a role IMO ie it didn't affect the narrative much nor it created much impact as songs. The editing by Sreejith Sarang was terrific along withSuddep Elamon's shots featuring the crowd and riots.

Despite of an entertaining experience, I am not really excited for its sequel. I wish they could have avoided detailing the possibilities of second half and ended up just like how Kaithi did. I really hope the sequel contains the stuff worthy. Overall, a heavy heavy improvement from the Queen team eventhough they didn't become the Kings. Sans political ideologies, the movie is an engaging stuff.

Ratings - 7.5/10