Pullikkaran Stara Malayalam Movie
We have a struggling protagonist in front of us. Despite being a gentle and handsome fellow, Rajakumaran is unable to get married (as per the story, he was born during the 70s). So the setting is ideal for a film that is tremendously relying on the charisma of Mammootty. In fact, teachers' trainer Rajakumaran is a drawcard for director Shyamdhar to seize our attention to a story with myriad potholes. He tries to cover the fissures with a visually slick but emotionally vapid tale.
"Pullikkaran Staraa" is centered around Idukki-born Rajakumaran, who is a mistaken personality even from his childhood owing to accidental circumstances. Screenwriter Retheesh Ravi has some justifications to these situations but they persuade us to believe in that way. In a school at Kochi, Rajakumaran has admirers among the teachers. The introduction of Manjari (Asha Sharath) and Manjima (Deepti Sati) is the beginning of buttressing your predictions about this family drama. There are also efforts from the part of Kuriachan (Dileesh Pothen) and Omanakshan Pillai (Innocent) to find a girl for Rajakumaran. Except their initial scenes, their performance creates lukewarm situations.
In his second movie, Shyamdhar succeeds only in portraying the school sequences, where you get the feel of the existence of a relevant tale. But once the camera turns to Rajakumaran's life, the trite and void feeling emerges. Mammootty is stunning in his appearance as ever through the camera of Vinod Illampally. As an actor, the character does not offer him any room for refreshing or testing his emotional levels as Rajakumaran is not a flamboyant role to have the luxury of expressing his feelings. He impresses us in his classroom sequences than his moments with his friends. Deepti Sati is apt in the role while Asha Sharath has little to offer in performance-wise.
Instead of focusing on the fatuous problem of the hero, the director could have given attention to the school episode because the premise has ample scope for exploring the life of Rajakumaran from another angle.
Lack of an imaginative script creates dent in the movie, which often meanders sans any purpose. Partially didactic in nature, "Pullikkaran Staraa" spins a yarn in predictable lines by exploiting the charisma of its protagonist. Only the star shines throughout but the content flickers.
OTHER REVIEWS
Kiran & Allen