Yes Your Honour Malayalam Movie

Nov 13, 2006 By Unni Nair

Yes Your Honour, which comes from one of the most reputed producers of Malayalam Cinema, P.V. Gangadharan of Grihalakshmi Productions and is directed by V.M. Vinu of Balettan fame, is an enjoyable film that reiterates the importance and relevance of moral values in today’s world.

Ravi Shankar, a law graduate worked as an assistant to senior advocate Venugopal, who had his hands full of cases. Ravi Shankar is an idealist and joined the legal profession to be of service to society. His shrewd observations on various aspects of a case and his thorough understanding of the nuances of law provided the perfect inputs for Venugopal. But the latter always took the credit, habitually degraded Ravi Shankar and treated him more like a domestic servant than as a legal practitioner. He is never given a chance to appear in any case.

Ravi Shankar had married Maya, a women’s rights activist who belonged to a rich family, against the wishes of her father Krishnan or brother Gopi Krishnan, both of whom are hand in gloves with a gang of baddies led by ex-minister Isaac Samuel and his aide Mustafa. It is advocate Venugopal who had been appearing in court for Isaac Samuel and his group in all kinds of criminal cases.

On the recommendation of Appukuttan, Venugopal’s clerk, Ravi is for once given an opportunity to handle a case on behalf of a client. Ravi works hard preparing for the hearing, only to learn at the last moment that the case has been handed over to another assistant. Ravi is frustrated and even manhandles Venugopal and leaves him for good. Venugopal decides to make life hell for Ravi and sees to it that no other lawyer hires him as an assistant. But a judge named Mukundan and ‘Sakshi’ Mani, who helps advocates by providing them with fake witnesses, come to his succour. Ravi is also helped by his friend and former classmate Prakash, who is an honest police officer. He is recommended to the panel for the post of Public Prosecutor. Meanwhile, owing to the timely intervention of Judge Mukundan, he is handed the responsibility of handling a case relating to the murder of Deputy Forest Officer Sharath Shetty. As a mater of coincidence, the real culprits in the case are Isaac Samuel and his group and hence Ravi has to battle his former senior Venugopal in the court. What happens then on forms the rest of Yes Your Honour.

Sreenivasan performs the role of the protagonist Ravi Shankar in his characteristic style. Padmapriya is OK as Maya. Saikumar in the role of Isaac Samuel does his role convincingly, while Innocent is in full form as Venugopal. Jagathy Sreekumar as Sakshi Mani is his usual self and is no doubt the best choice for the role. Suresh Krishna gets a change of image, playing a positive character, that of Prakash, the honest and daring cop. Thilakan does the role of Mukundan convincingly. Riyaz Khan as Gopi Krishnan, Sreeraman as Krishnan, and Babu Namboothiri as Appukuttan fit into their respective roles very well.

Veteran scenarist T. Damodharan proves once again that time has not taken the fire out of him and that he still can write scripts that are relevant to the day. Cinematography by Shaji, editing by P.C. Mohanan and Art Direction by Bawa are in tune with the theme. Of the songs penned by Vayalar Sharath Chandra Verma and set to tune by Deepak Dev, “Chellam Chellam…” and “Chillakombile…” stand out though they may not top the charts. To sum up, though Yes Your Honour may not become a sensation at the box office, it is not a bad film to watch at least once, especially because it reiterates values and ideals that have been eroded and seem out of context in today’s world, and are rarely seen glorified in films.