Review : "Orissa"

1980's true story is the claim by the director M Padmakumar in his directorial Malayalam movie "Orissa", but sad to say this real story gives a bit of anguish and the film totally fails to connect conventional story telling. G S Anil's script is too lethargic or may be the narration adopted by the director M Padmakumar affects the film's good prospect. "Orissa" could have been a brilliant watch, if it had treated well.....

 It all began with the two Old age couples journey to their old memories, which they left back in the state of Orissa in their younger
days. With that memories, we move through the life of Christhudas (Unni Mukundan) and Suneyi (Saanika Nambiar) in 1980's at Orissa, where the Devadasi system made many of the women's to live the life like a slave. Suneyi's mother oppose this system imposed forcefully by the leader of the clan Karmadeva Pradhan (Nigel Akkara), which was to make her daughter Suneyi a Devadasi. To protect her daughter Suneyi's mother cost her life with the bullet from the gun of Karmadeva Pradhan.

 Suneyi saw her mother's death and to protect herself from the clan leader, she needs protection and that came in the face of young police constable Chrithudas from Kerala, who gets the posting in Orissa. In the meantime, we go through some protest from social activist Meera Bai (Tanushree Ghosh) and we see that collector has ordered imprisonment of Karmadeva Pradhan for a year.  In between, love blooms around Christhudas and Suneyi, where everything was fine, but the return of devil force them to the difficult situation, which forms the rest of this story.

 M Padmakumar and scenarist G S Anil haven't applied the proper dialogues as well, above that voiceover in Malayalam language, impair the quality scenes. biggest let down is the script, which looks voluminous, however things could have been different, if the makers kept the narration in a nice pace. On the visual composition, full marks to the cinematographer Vinod Illampilly, who adapted the sensual beauty of the new location.

 Unni Mukundan looks hesitant with his character and managed to the mediocre level. Saanika Nambiar did gave her best and looks to be a promising find in Malayalam cinema. Nigel Akkara, Tanushree Ghosh, Swasika, Ganja Karuppu, Kaniha, Sanjeev Chakraborty and others have given their decent shots to the characters. Music hasn't gave too much of strength with the hands of Ratheesh Vegha and lyrics by Aalankode Leelakrishnan. For the banner of Heera Films, Chattikkal Madhavan Edappal is the producer of this Malayalam movie "Orissa", which has distributed by Heera Films through Nalukettu Release.

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