Rajamma @ Yahoo Malayalam Movie
Rajamma (Kunchacko Boban) and Yahoo (Asif Ali) are brothers who have been orphaned quite early in their childhood, and have stayed on at the Rajom Bungalow with the assistance of their caretaker Maimoottikka (Mamukkoya). Over the years, they learn to make both ends meet by lending out the open space in front of the bungalow to local vendors, and lead a totally haphazard life.
Change arrives in the form of Nessy (Anusree) and her family who move into the bungalow on her lover Yahoo's insistence. Not one to be left behind, Rajamma lets out another part to a village officer (Kalabhavan Shajon) and the very last room is taken up by Sherin (Nikki Galrani) who has arrived in the city to do an IELTS course.
This is the premise on which Raghum Rama Verma builds up his directorial debut 'Rajamma @ Yahoo', and this is exactly what fails him. With songs appearing in quick succession and with not much of a stellar tale to tell, 'Rajamma @ Yahoo' finds itself in troubled waters from the word 'go'.
'Rajamma @ Yahoo' is a strange kind of a film in that there is nothing distasteful about it. There are crude dialogues, nor are there repugnant sequences in it that would set your guts churning. But it also remains that it seldom manages to perk your spirits up, and there is simply no occasion in it that would revel the expectant viewer in you.
The former half of the film is utterly uneventful and by the halfway point, you realize that it all depends on Sherin and her story for 'Rajamma @ Yahoo' to leave a mark. Hence when the camera zooms in on an anxious Rajamma's face at the interval, you keep hoping against hope that Sherin has an interesting tale to tell.
She does recount her tale in the latter half, and it turns out to be half as interesting as it should ideally have been. 'Rajamma @ Yahoo' takes a sharp turn however at this point, and conveniently forgets an array of characters that it had introduced initially, and the Mayor of Calicut (Renji Panicker) overshadows all of them in a jiffy.
It's only with astonishment that you can watch the story move about on highly predictable lines, and with a climax that is pretty much the weakest part of the entire film, 'Rajamma @ Yahoo' just about manages to end it all with a whimper. Which is why it ends up as a film with no surprises, no shocks, no thrills and no excitement either.
The script by Sindhuraj is one that totally lacks the fizz, and marks the downfall of the film, and it should be specified that Verma has done the very best that he can with a very middling screenplay at hand. One would have been content had there been a few gags at least that are expected in a film as this, but 'Rajamma @ Yahoo' is infinitesimally low in the humour quotient as well.
Kunchacko Boban and Asif Ali are individually good, though 'Rajamma @ Yahoo' does not offer them much scope to display the vibrant camaraderie that would have made a difference in the overall impact that the film could have made. Anusree and Nikki Galrani are adequate, while Renji Panicker, for the first time ever goes a bit overboard with his performance as Pothen.
Apparently, two uncanny names for its protagonists do not a good film make! 'Rajamma @ Yahoo' is a let-down with its ho-hum story, and snugly curls up in a dullsville crypt that it has dug out for itself.
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