Minnaminnikkoottam Malayalam Movie

There is this smug little world that Minnaminnikoottam depicts, that's far, far away from real life and real people. Which makes it a boring and meandering flick that's utterly clueless about relations, emotions and most importantly what it claims to be all about - love. Jul 12, 2008 By Veeyen

Minnaminnikoottam has a tremendously dynamic youth brigade fruitlessly making an effort to infuse some glow into a long dead firefly. When a petty lovers' tiff that doesn't warrant another glance gets long-drawn-out to a never ending narrative that goes on for about three tedious hours, I found myself wondering as to when real romance had flown out of the Malayalam cinema window.

Charulatha (Meera Jasmine) and Abhilash (Narein) are software engineers allegedly in love, though spats between the two are common. They are part of an eight member techie gang that also has the boisterous Manikunju (Jayasurya), the tactful Rose Mary (Roma), the docile Kalyani (Radhika), the seemingly indifferent Pachan (Anoop Chandran) and the forever-happily-married couple Sidharth (Indrajith) and Mumtaz (Samvrutha). Life is all sugar and spice until Abhi's dad (P Sreekumar) makes an appearance and derides Charu's family, or what's left of it. A miffed Charu takes off to Singapore with no intentions to return ever.

Presto, you got it right. It's a rich-boy-meets-a-middle-class-girl tale that is as old and lame as it can possibly get. In order to mask the obvious, this oft-told yarn is jam-packed with plenty of style. The apartments are plush, the workspaces swanky, food is all cheeseburgers and French fries and last but certainly not the least, there's plenty and plenty of beer flowing around.

You shouldn't for a moment believe that these kids have got it all on a silver platter though. Charu has had to battle it out in life literally, after her mom took off with a lover when she was five. And there's Rose Mary who has even been a housemaid (which seems to be the in-thing these days) before she became an engineer. Yeah. Yawn.

Oddly, watching Minnaminnikoottam, I felt like having spent an evening in a swish supermarket buying up new commodities that I am learning to spell first. Because beneath all the glitz is a void that's quite tiresome on account of its insignificance. You hence drop your head in disgust when they croon 'We are in love!' and tolerantly wait for the torment to be over, so that you can get on with the rest of it.

There are scenes aplenty, when you almost make up your mind to hang up your boots. However, since you get to spot them a mile away, you sportingly wait for this mind-numbing romantic romp to come up with something a wee bit fresh, which never happens. It's a whole lot of bad ideas in succession leading to a syrupy end that is instantly forgettable.

It's a pity that almost every actor in this multi starrer leaves a mark of earnestness, with regard to performances. When you come to think of it, it isn't entirely their fault that they are asked to play around on a silly ground that's absolutely groan inducing.

There is this smug little world that Minnaminnikoottam depicts, that's far, far away from real life and real people. Which makes it a boring and meandering flick that's utterly clueless about relations, emotions and most importantly what it claims to be all about - love.