'November Rain' - lovely name but not much more
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Film: "November Rain"; Cast: Arun, Nimisha, Lalu Alex, Geetha & Daniel Balaji; Director: Vinu Joseph; Music: Anup S. Nair Here
is another film dealing with Kerala's underworld, about how youngsters
get entangled in unlawful activities. The name is full of promise but
the film does not live up to it.
Satyanarayan, played by Arun of
"4 The People" fame, is an average guy. He makes friends in college who
are involved in criminal activities and have links with the underworld.
The
story progresses with Satya climbing up the crime ladder and becoming a
big time don. How his involvement in crime affects his family life and
creates rifts in his friendships is the focus of the film. The story
ends in a tragic climax as expected. No innovative twist or turn here.
The
conflicts in the story are at different levels. At one level we have
Satya's family Krishnamoorthy (Lalu Alex), who is an inspector in the
police force. He appears to be a very strict father but he dotes on his
son.
Then there is Satya's love life. Satya wants to marry his love, Anu, played by newcomer Nimisha with some difficulty.
The
conflict between father and son, though unconvincing, is well done. The
love story between Satya and Anu is not given enough scope and when
they start living together, the audience is pleasantly surprised.
Being
a professional goon has its hazards and tension. There is rivalry,
double crossing, killings and such other incidental things to deal
with. Though there is nothing original in the manner all these scenes
are played out, Satya is shown to be a henchman of Majid Ali and later
his rival, with some success. Tamil actor Daniel Balaji is in good form
here as Majid Ali.
Actor Arun gives an assured performance, but his character needed fine-tuning.
Lalu
Alex in the role of Krishnamoorthy, Satya's father, is just about okay,
perhaps even a little boring as we have seen him repeatedly doing such
roles.
This is Nimisha's debut film -- she looks sweet, but has
not been given enough time on screen to prove her talent. Geetha, who
makes her comeback in Malayalam films, is good as Satya's mother.
The suburbs of Kochi come alive through Viswamangal's cinematography.
This is Vinu Joseph's first film; one hopes he will come out with something more original in his next attempt. By C.P. Parashuram, Indo-Asian News Service
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