Night Drive Malayalam Movie
One of the best things about Vysakh's movies is that they are unpretentious. Take the gloriously OTT Pokkiri Raja, for instance. The characters in Pokkiri Raja do not behave like they are making some serious masterpiece. Instead, they act like they enjoy the process, making that silly film more enjoyable for the audience. I walked out of Night Drive with a similar feeling, though it is a completely different film from Pokkiri Raja.
Vysakh weaves a modern incident like the Kerala gold smuggling case into the script. A big politician is facing jail time for his involvement in the smuggling case. He tries to cover up his deeds before law enforcement comes knocking on his doors.
In a parallel track, a young couple, Anna Ben's Riya and Roshan Mathew's Georgie, are on a night drive to celebrate the girl's birthday. But their car crashes into a man on the road. It should make them a witness, but a corrupt law enforcement system tries to make them the masterminds behind a crime.
Night Drive is neither a whodunit suspense-thriller nor a howdunit. It has definite characters, and we know who are on the wrong side and the right side of the law. What keeps us engaged in the proceedings is our eagerness about what is going to happen next and how the good characters are going to get out of this mess. Vysakh keeps the tone of the film light enough to ensure that we do not take it too seriously. He also narrates the story with some confidence and derives consistently good performances.
Indrajith Sukumaran plays a cop we are familiar with, but he is such a good actor that his part never becomes uninteresting. He conveys his feelings about the case with his eyes and occasional pauses. This actor is so good that he could let the audience know the intentions of his character without too many dialogues. Roshan Mathew and Anna Ben make for a good couple. Even when the film tries to highlight the love angle between them, the actors ensure that it does not become overboard. Siddique plays the over-the-top politician character as only he can. On the other hand, Kalabhavan Shajohn does a decent job of playing the bad cop role for the nth time.
Characterization is not a strength of Vysakh, though. Siddique's role is a stock character. At the start, it seems that Anna Ben has a promising role to play here, but the more you analyze it, the less convincing it seems. Ben plays a journo, but she does not use her journalistic clout enough to help herself and her boyfriend get out of trouble. It is a case of lazy writing when the heroine only becomes a spectator of the action around her at one point. The movie also has a slightly problematic approach to juvenile crime in that it kind of condones that form of crime. But these are not quite major deal-breakers because Vysakh maintains a light mood for the most part.
Night Drive will not earn Vysakh any brownie points for filmmaking. The lighting seems way off at many points in the film, and the bits of comedy are puerile. Notwithstanding all those flaws, Night Drive is a coherent film that succeeds in entertaining the audience.
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