Vikramadityan Malayalam Movie

Vikramadithyan by Lal Jose & team is the story of an underdog that would leave you dog-tired by the time it reaches the last fifteen minutes of its run time. Just before you think you are passing out for sheer disappointment and weariness, it gives you a shot in the arm, making you recover quite a bit. Yes, quite a bit. The shot gives you enough strength to wear a jaded smile before you get up and walk out of the cinema unaided, with a small limp. Jul 25, 2014 By Shaji Francis

When top-notch technicians like Lal Jose, Jommon T John and Dr Iqbal Kuttipuram join hands together, accompanied by promising artists like Dulquer Salman, Unni Mukundan, Namitha Pramod and Anoop Menon, expectations would soar very high. With the publicity material promising a great entertainer, packaging good action, fun, romance, friendship and drama, together with inspiring stories of Lal Jose and Unni Mukundan positioned to renew themselves with this project, audience flocked to cinemas, in large numbers.

The prelude part of the movie plays very well, establishing a solid platform for a great entertainer to launch itself. Contradicting expectations, what transpires on the silver screen after the opening credits is a slow and steady slide to meagre standards of movie-making, until the final fifteen minutes or so. Through bits and pieces of non-linear patches of friendship, love, family drama, the real story of the movie that is of the underdog Adithyan (Dulquer Salman) unfolds.

Being the son of a dishonoured thief who committed suicide when the family disowned him, Adithyan must fight shame, dishonour, and depriving competition in life. With Vikraman (Unni Mukundan) as his classmate and foe-like friend, who is the son of the Circle Inspector Shenoy (Anoop Menon), beating him in every competition, the underdog wins the audience's sympathy and support. Deepika (Namitha Pramod) is a common friend to both Vikraman and Adithya, though she describes Vikraman to be her 'best friend', and Adithya to be her 'hmmm... worst friend', blushingly. Vikraman aspires to be a Police Officer, while Adithya loiters around with the underdog's label. Deepika manages to pep up the fighter and the achiever in Adithyan, who enters the race to the job of a Police Officer; whether he succeeds or not forms the rest of the story.

With the movie attempting to be a little of many things like friendship, romance, family relationships, an underdog's story, together with an attempt to project Dulquer like a Star - it fails as an interesting unit that has focus. Because it knows it must also entertain its audience, there are a few songs, comedy scenes, and action sequences, none of which really entertains.

There are precisely two scenes in the whole movie, before the final twist, that deserves praise. The first one is when Adithya confronts Shenoy in the Police Station, after the latter insults Adithya over his deceased father's dishonour, to expose Shenoy's pseudo integrity (as a Police Officer) in respectful privacy. The second scene is when the trio (Vikraman, Aditya and Deepika) meets on the beach, where Vikraman's true emotions for Adithya are revealed, and when the two share a few moments of sublime intimacy.

With the average script that does not pack any scope or challenge for greatness in direction, cinematography or any other creative exercise, there isn't much to talk about any of those technical aspects. It was surprising to see Jomon not challenged at all in cinematography, and you hardly see anything compelling from him. Background score by Bijibal was non-interfering.

Anoop Menon and Dulquer Salman excelled in performance, in the same order. It's heartening to see Dulquer growing steadily to perform mature roles that are powerful and firebrand, something that his father is phenomenally good at! In the under-written role of the top-dog (the counter part of the underdog) character, Unni Mukundan performed reasonably well. If it turns out to be his revival project, great for him!

Just because you know you have a trump card that can change the game for you at the eleventh hour, you cannot play the game shabbily until that moment. Having gone too far into the unwarranted territories to reach the point-of-no-return, the final slingshot that was expected to catapult the movie back to recognition could not have worked at all!

Vikramadithyan might not bite the dust because of its star cast and the last-moment shot-in-the-arm. If you pull out any one of these two factors, the movie would fall apart in no time!