Odiyan - The art of digging yourself into a hole.

Odiyan - the movie equivalent of what happens when you let your 8-month old cousin drive your car. It was actually a surprise that the Malayali audience expected a good movie from the director who gave us the most obnoxious set of  ads that plagued our television. It also did not help that Sreekumar Menon did what he knows best to increase the audience expectation : Marketing. The result was a lukewarm film for the audience and a botched Botox job for Mohanlal.

That being said, Odiyan is not a complete failure of a film. If you look past the extravagant claims by the director and the onslaught of internet trolls for the first three days, Odiyan is a passable movie with flaws and a few merits. It did not deserve the bad press and certainly deserved a better director.

Voodoo Doctor or Ninja Assassin?

One of the most prominent discussion that came up during the release of this film was about the myth and lore of odiyan. The general consensus was that it was a person of a particular caste(s) who scared people with the help of black magic and acted as an occult hit-man. The film lacked  clarity in defining the magical systems at work. Odiyan seemed to serve both as a black magician and a ninja as well. He is seen performing occult rituals, floating in air and transforming into animals. He also dons a cape and a crude mask of the animal he is supposed to be transforming into, runs around on all fours which hardly fools anyone. Most of the stunt scenes have action sequences which are already shown in other Mohanlal films, where he does all of it without the help of black magic. If the director had stuck to one thing, the audience would have invested more of their attention while watching the film, rather than figuring out what exactly is Odiyan. The blink-and-miss action scenes where the Odiyan scares people were actually effective. It retained the mystery of the character and tied it together with the plot. 

The Elephant in the room

Arguably, the worst thing that this film did to the audience was burning the image of Mohanlal's Botox face in the minds of the people. It would take a considerable amount of time for us to un-see that beloved face scarred by the ill-advised decision of an inexperienced director. The need for such drastic measures is not at all evident in the movie. There are a million other character design options for a younger looking Odiyan, but Sreekumar Menon went with the one where half of the audience's attention is diverted to the real estate between Mohanlal's upper lip and nose. Thankfully, the effects of Botox are not permanent. 

Manju Warrier and The 'Kanji' scene

The infamous "Kanji" scene did look weird. After an emotional monologue by Odiyan, Manju Warrier's character, without much reaction, abruptly changes the mood of the scene by offering him Kanji. If it weren't for the trolls, the audience wouldn't have given much thought to this scene. What is to be noted is that, this is actually an extension of the lack of depth of Manju Warrier's character. Due to the script structure, the audience is presented with an ever changing character - a loving wife, a sincere friend to Manikyan, a grieving widow who subsequently seeks revenge on Manikyan, then goes back to being friendly with him and finally getting romantically involved with him. The couple is portrayed in a mistress-servant relationship, which was refreshing compared to the mainstream conventions.

The verdict

As an early 90s Mohanlal character would say, "in these days of degenerating decencies" , mainstream Malayalam cinema has regressed to a corporate project with popular active ingredients. The poster of Odiyan had more corporate logos than a Formula One racing car. With the reducing attention span of the audience, films will focus more on the short -term returns and alternative revenues like overseas and satellite rights. Hence the product is a fast-paced trailer, blotted out into a feature-length movie where the fanboys are happy, haters and trolls are happy, promoters and producers are happy, and the casual movie goers are happy. 

Rating:   Pulimurugan 2.0: Now with 30% more animals!