Masterpiece Movie Review

Masterpiece is yet another forgettable Mammootty starrer that needs the actor more than he needs it. Dec 21, 2017 By Vighnesh Menon

Mass films are often misunderstood as easy films to make. Attach a star and alter the tropes of mass appeal and voila!, is the misconception. There are little nuances one ought to keep in mind to really exhilarate the masses when it comes to making such films. Masterpiece is that mass, masala Malayalam film which, in its failure, reminds us of the virtues of such nuances and the price to pay when they are done wrong.

As expected, all the pieces in Masterpiece orbit around its superstar lead, Mammootty. His character would call itself a college professor but we know it is so much more. Unsurprisingly, this suave English teacher spits fire through his words and fists, to which the entire world can do nothing but bow and capitulate, sooner or later. The character has his reasons to be self-righteous and all-powerful. But, there is no end to how the actor uses this fan vehicle as a mouthpiece to cleanse his image off any recent real-life allegations, making Masterpiece excessively as well as adversely self-aware and self-destructive in its treatment.

What

works for Masterpiece is the same star power it proudly parades. While Mammootty stands tall as the singular hero, a long line-up of young and old talent show up in major and minor roles, out of which Unni Mukundan, Varalakshmi Sharatkumar and Kalabhavan Shajohn stand out with respect to the film's needs and wants. Whether the ensemble was used effectively is debatable, but the lavish casting choices are strangely interesting, to say the least.

Masterpiece merges the genres of campus drama and crime. But it gets neither of them right. Logical missteps are passable but any semblance to actual campus spirits and the intrigues behind procedurals is nowhere to be seen. The hard-pressed plot twists and reveals come a little too late in a film that exceeds its ideal runtime by half-an-hour. By the time the crucial punchline is thrown, the film has already sucked all the excitement out of you with its poorly-timed drama and lack of suspense. Worse, if you are familiar with the space in which Masterpiece functions, none of its shocks or shudders are going to hit you at any point.