Debutant director Retheish Kumar’s Thrissivaperoor Kliptham (Thrissur Limited) had an interesting trailer. If you have seen it, you would know this film is about a bunch of men in Thrissur town who were classmates at a local government school. They were rivals in school, and they are determined to carry on the rivalry as further as they can in life. The trailer had also promised some interesting twists in the story, and some quirky characters worth looking forward to.
However, the film has nothing that holds your attention. The actors deliver an earnest performance, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. Thrissivaperoor Kliptham is a mess composed of patchy characters, and badly edited sequences that leave loose ends everywhere.
The film opens to an upper-class Christian household where the members are getting ready for the betrothal ceremony of the youngest scion. There are close-up shots of sumptuous pork curry, for food shots and food talks are essential in the making of a new wave Malayalam film. There is Zarina Wahaab as a fiery grandma, badly lip syncing to Thrissur slang of Malayalam. The sequence culminates in a convoluted plot point where the groom, David Pauly (Chemban Vinod), hides a bottle of rum under his shirt and gets caught red-handed during the ceremony, in front of the church priest and guests. It doesn’t seem reasonable that Pauly hid the bottle under his shirt, while he could have easily kept it in his room.
Several times in the film occur instances as this, where situations look staged, and actions and consequences are disproportionate.
Jose has invited a high-profile celebrity, an actress known for her hotness, to inaugurate his jewellery show room. To ruin his plans, David and his friends hatch a plan. They meet the actress’ agent, and hire her for one night of sex. But she will sleep with only one of the men and that too, for a whopping sum of money. So, David’s gang has to decide who among them would be the lucky one. A good deal of time is spent on solving this confusion. A simpleton named Girija Vallabhan (Asif Ali), a new entrant to the gang, gets chosen, but he is in short of money. There begins another exhausting sequence where the characters run around to pool some money to break Girija Vallabhan’s long-preserved virginity.
The fault rests with Dileesh Pothan and Rajeev Ravi, the filmmakers whose raw and realistic style of film-making swept Mollywood off its feet. Now on every other Friday, releases a Malayalam film where characters indulge in earthy visceral matters like food, sex and crime. Efforts are made to ensure that the fight sequences look natural and dirty, and dialogues and characterisations are rooted in the surroundings. There is a new style to shooting comic scenes. Dileesh got it right twice, with Maheshinte Prathikaaram and Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum, and Rajeev Ravi, with Annayum Rasoolum and Kammattipadom. But the imitations lack the intelligence and precision that made the above-said films works of genius.
Siddharth Bharathan’s Varnyathil Aashanka had raw and visceral situations and characterisations, but its story-telling lacked a neat rhythm. Thrissivaperoor Cliptham has its focus on the relationship shared by a bunch of foolish, egotistic and violent men. But the plot fails to hold them together. Many a time during the film, you would want to get up and leave, for the antics of these men do not seem interesting at all. They are old enough to realise how silly they are, but refuse to rein themselves in. For one, nothing explains their obsession with Girija Vallabhan, a good-for-nothing young man who is too clumsy to complete a single job with minimum neatness.
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There is a parallel story-line about a young girl, Bhageerathy (Aparna Balamurali), who works as an auto-rickshaw driver in Thrissur town. She has a troubled past – as an infant, her mother had abandoned her in a slum and eloped with her lover. Her present is troubled as well – her half-sister’s family is being harassed by a pimp. This part of the film bears a resemblance with Lohithadas’ genre of stories. Anupama’s performance might remind one of Manju Warrier’s in Kanmadam, but she is disappointingly one-note. True that she is an underdog struggling to survive in a hard world, but why would Bhageerathy drive her rickshaw with a furious face?
Even composer Bijibal, who seldom disappoints, is out of form here. He offers a mishmash of songs that pass without making any impression. Thrissivaperoor Kliptham is a forgettable movie that offers hollow laughs and absurd characters.
***
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