Velipadinte Pusthakam movie review: This Mohanlal starrer malayalam film, hit cinema screens on August 31st, thursday and like all other movies starring Mohanlal, this one too had huge expectations around it. Does the film deliver on those expectations? Read on to find out more. The film has been directed by Lal Jose who has a pretty successful record with films like Meesa Madhavan and Ayalum Njanum Thammil. Benny P. Nayarambalam has written Velipadinte Pusthakam, which oscillates between the genres of comedy, drama and thriller. Anthony Perumbavoor had produced the film under the banner of Aashirvad Cinemas. The rest of the star cast of the film includes Priyanka Nair, Anoop Menon, Arun Kurian, Anna Rajan, Siddhique and Salim Kumar among others.
Velipadinte Pusthakam tells us a gripping tale set in Phoenix College situated in the coastal area of Kerala. There a long standing clashes between the local students and the students who originally come from the city. They have numerous issues bothering them which lead to inevitable but sometimes silly altercations between the two sections of students coming from contrasting backgrounds. Salim Kumar, plays the Vice-Principal who gets shown the door, which leads to Professor Michael Idikkula (Mohanlal) stepping into his shoes and attempting to reform the state of affairs in the college and bringing about a change in the strained relationship between the city students and the local ones. Watch out for the entry scene of Mohanlal and the stunt he performs.
Mohanlal succeeds in transforming the atmosphere in the college (Probably, a tad too easily.)He soon starts working with the students for a common cause of funding the construction of the college hostel, by making a feature film and this film is based on the life of a local gunda Vishwanathan (Anoop Menon) who was killed under mysterious circumstances. Michael becomes instrumental in unlocking the mystery behind this.
This shift in genres from being a comedy to turning into a murder mystery with the interesting narrative style of the college film’s shooting throwing various clues about the murder and the audience being served a story through the shoot of another film, is applause worthy but still falls short in many aspects. In between all the calls for ‘action’ and ‘cut’, the emotional connect with the characters goes haywire.
Mohanlal is the heart of Velipadinte Pusthakam and the supporting cast does justice to the parts they are given. The film leaves you a tad bit underwhelmed with its writing and depth. Running at 2 hours 37 minutes, some crisp editing would have helped too.
Watch it with your expectations in check for the interesting narrative style.
