Smart City Malayalam Movie

Dec 18, 2006 By Unni Nair

Here is yet another writer who proves once again, after Ranjan Pramod, that directing is not as easy as script-writing. B. Unnikrishnan, who penned the script for films like "Cover Story", "Shivam", "The Tiger" etc, turns director on the big screen with "Smart City", a Suresh Gopi starrer, which was supposed to turn out to be a good, fast-paced action thriller, but has in fact turned out to be a big disaster.

Shekharan has always been at the head of the mafia in Kochi. And then he gets a trusted lieutenant in Madhavan, who is shrewd, daring and dependable too. Shekharan's daughter Sharada is married to Sharath Chandran, who is the Town Planning Officer. Sharath is honest and doesn't like his father-in-law or Madhavan for that matter, and is averse to letting his wife or son go visiting them.

Shekharan and Madhavan have always been at loggerheads with the Kottooraan group headed by Joseph Kottooraan, Thomas Kottooraan and the State Finance Minister Raghuram. In the meantime, a daring City Police Commissioner Arun Nambiar takes charge and sets out to eliminate the mafia. Madhavan's sister Devi, who doesn't know what exactly Shekharan and Madhavan are doing, is in love with Varun, the younger brother of Arun Nambiar. There is a faceless individual who controls the Kottooraan group and is its de facto head. When the identity of this mysterious person is revealed, it comes as a shock to everyone. Then follows the real battle between the Kottooraan group and the Shekharan-Madhavan syndicate.

Suresh Gopi repeats himself the umpteenth time as Madhavan. Except for the new hairdo, there is nothing new as far as his character is concerned. We have become fed up watching such characters so frequently. There is moreover something incongruous as far as the character and its portrayal is concerned. Murali as Shekharan, Siddique as Arun Nambiar, Manoj K. Jayan as Sharath Chandran, Shammi Thilakan as Raghuram and Rajmohan Unnithan as Joseph Kottooraan make no impact whatsoever. Jayasurya and Gopika as Varun and Devi respectively have nothing to do at all and their characters are very poorly etched. Similar is the case with Lakshmi Gopalaswami as Sharada.

There is little to be said about the technical aspects, which make no impression on us at all. The songs too just make you yawn and even doze off in the middle. In total, B. Unnikrishnan and his crew simply disappoint us with Smart City, a film that is anything but smart.