Tiyan - Deep subject, shallow treatment.

I had heard a lot of bad reviews about this movie before I decided to see it yesterday. I was expecting a face palm for my soul. Surprisingly, this movie isn't as bad as what people are saying. I really liked the central theme of spirituality/mysticism and enlightenment. Tiyan manages something which majority of the current movies cannot - stick on to a central theme. That being said, there are a lot of obvious negatives to be said about this movie.

The movie is about two characters meeting each other on the path of enlightenment. Aslan, a Muslim gangster from Mumbai (a Robin Hood character) abandons his criminal empire after a great personal tragedy. He becomes a vagabond as advised by a Baba and roams all over North India. A group of aghori sadhus takes him in and leads him through a journey which ultimately results in him attaining a higher consciousness. He is instructed to bide his time until destiny takes him to the antagonist who needs to be destroyed by him.

The second character- Pattabhiraman- is the last in a family of Brahman guardians taking care of an idol installed by Sri Shankaracharya for generations. His family and house is threatened by an evil godman, trying to annex his house and plot for a corporate land grabbing mafia. Pattabhiraman is almost defeated by the godman's schemes when destiny brings Aslan to his aid.

Pros:

1. I really liked the central theme about spirituality and the way the filmmaker has weaved it into the situations. It was fun to watch the lead characters undergoing their personal transformations. The movie borders on magical realism and oodly reminded me of the similar scenes in Doctor Strange.

2. Indrajith does a good job as Pattabhiraman. Prithviraj does fairly good as Aslan, even though his role is heavily script supported, as expected.

Cons:

1. Sadly, the way the subject is treated in the movie is very shallow. A campy/cheesy villain who reminds you of the Suresh Gopi movies in the '90s ruins the depth of the movie. The conflicts in the movie is lame and does not carry it's deep central theme. The over the top fight scenes looks like taken out of a Telugu Balakrishna movie.

2. Just like most Malayalam movies, the script tries to explain and justify everything in the movie. Somethings have to be left to the audience's imagination. The script goes out of it's way to connect Aslan to the godman. It also creates an unnecessary backstory of an ancient war in the past lives of Aslan and Pattabhiraman which becomes a reason for their connection.

3. The script tries to touch upon a lot of current social issues including cow related violence, Hindu radicalism, North Indian racism, caste barriers etc to be politically correct. The first half is full of these anticipatory bail attempts, so much so that one would suspect that the script writer feels guilty for making a story about Hindu spiritualism.

On the whole, the movie has tried something noble and failed. If they had treated it differently instead of being too political, it would have been a lot better. The script has purpose, which is something that cannot be said about the majority of the current Malayalam movies. Definitely worth watching once, if you can spent money on movies like Mexican @#$%$, CIA, Goda etc.

Rating: The illegitimate lovechild of Shaji Kailas and Shaji N Karun.