Which Malayalam film did you watch recently ?

[Murali Srinivas]

The Train

Went to this Jayaraj directed Mammootty movie with least expectations since the reviews that I had read had all been negative and as it often happens you don't feel underwhelmed when yo have less expectations. Not that it is a great movie but definitely worth a watch.

Jayaraj who is responsible for the story and screenplay had taken the artistic liberty of mixing facts with fiction. Narrating the story in the backdrop of serial bomb blasts that took place in local trains in Mumbai way back in 2006, he intertwines some characters into the main plot which helps to raise the tempo.

A track singer whose life ambition is to sing under the music baton of A.R.Rahman, a software engineer who had run away from her parents and is on a suicidal mood getting distracted by a wrong call from the singer, a Muslim woman running from pillar to post to get her father's freedom fighter's monthly pension released so that he can take the Haj pilgrimage, an aged Grandfather, mercilessly dumped in an old age home by his Son and D-I-Law both being Medical professionals, sneaking out of the home to meet his grandson who is celebrating his birthday, all by chance decide to take the local train from different stations like CST, Sion, Dadar, Byculla, Parel etc on that fateful day. On the other side there are 5 terrorists who decide to place IEDs in 7 stations to cause explosion between 6 and 6.11 PM on the same day. In between there is a Senior officer attached to the Special Task force who is on his way to his home by local train and who smells something fishy and there starts a game and you get a different climax, rather an unexpected one.

A great cocktail on paper but on the execution part Jayaraj seems to have missed it. Film covers the 12 hour period from 6 am to 6 pm and the Metro City is captured in Sun and shade, Rain and gloom in all it's glory. Mammootty as Special Task force officer doesn't get much of a screen space but on hindsight you think that even a Suresh Gopi would have been enough and wonder why such a Mega star for this? Jayasuriya as the track singer and lover boy is ok.

Not sure whether any Hindi Films had shown the Mumbai local stations so extensively. The camera simply travels with the train to and fro. One thing that needs to be said is the novelty factor. The way the story is told, I don't think that any Indian film's screenplay would have been narrated in this manner though not aware about this technique having been used in Hollywood films. Don't want to spill the beans on what exactly I mean, since people like Ajay/Anoop might want to catch the movie. But I am equally sure that 8 out of 10 people who watched the movie would not have even noticed that.

Sad that such an attempt is not getting the appreciation due. Only if Jayaraj had been little more enterprising ---

Regards