JAWAN OF VELLIMALLA (Malayalam) (2012)

In a small Keralian village named Vellimala the dam not only serves as blessing but also becomes a symbol of pride & prosperity for its citizens. Slowly the same dam becomes an issue of alarm for its constant power shedding, rising suicide cases and above all the corrupt power mechanism that operated it from its very construction. The constant companion of the dam is its night watchman named Gopi who’s paranoiac and suffering from seeing illusory ghosts. He is no larger than life default commercial hero but a common man with a personal phobia who’s considered as petrified coward army soldier ran away from war in his hometown. Enters the scene a newly appointed executive engineer who smells a huge power deficit and corruption that becomes threat to the citizens.  

Maintaining commercial ingredients intact without going over the top either in action or emotion, director Anoopkannan brought a sumptuous visual treat from land of Kerala. Along with engaging & entertaining, it also gave a concerning message to society. I never seen any Indian films where dam becomes a character and the site of it filmed so beautifully in entire film nor any Hindi cinema enlightened me something so rare and unusual disease like CBS in such intriguing way apart of usual cancer and heart attack tearjerkers. The honest performances of superstar Mammoootty as the protagonist fighting his personal and public demons & Sreenivasan as honest officer on duty are surely commendable one. Saying all these, I don’t deny its few flaws in the later half that cease it from becoming a better film but compared to routine hindi commercial cinema, this one seems totally refreshing change for me. Why don’t current mainstream Hindi cinemas passing through really a bad phase of originality inspires from something like such sincere regional efforts!