Pazhassi Raja

We had been thinking of going to watch Pazhassi Raja – the movie for quite some time now. The reviews had been mixed –feedback from those who had seen it indicated that the movie was good on the technical side – the photography, background score etc. but not everyone was happy with the pace of the movie.

We finally made it to the theatre to see the movie yesterday. Our daughter’s feedback on the movie was registered 30 minutes into the movie. A battle scene was on, Resul Pookutty’s background score was good but there seemed to a song in the background somewhere – it was out daughter who was supplementing Resul by singing a song and entertaining herself. 15 minutes after the interval she was in the horizontal position head on mother’s lap, feet on father’s unmindful of what Mamooty and co. were doing to save us from the British.

Overall I enjoyed the movie. Yes, the score is good – so is the attention to detail in the costumes and the photography. The kind of movie you want to see on the big screen and not on the idiot box 2 years later during Onam/Vishu/Christmas !

A couple of small points though – Padmapriya plays an important part in the movie. However her part ends abruptly and without much closure. My wife tells me that we should take it that because her character was in the heat of battle it is to be assumed that she gets killed. Rumors have it (heard from a friend) that she was in a battle all right – but with the director (regarding role/remuneration etc) and I guess we can assume that the director is the one who killed the character abruptly ! :-)

Mamooty has been overshadowed by Sharath Kumar. A couple of friends told me earlier that the movie should have been called Edachena Kunkan (the character played by Sharat Kumar) instead of Pazhassi Raja.

All said and done, I enjoyed the movie but the last 15 minutes was a let down – especially the ending! Here you have a prince for whom many had sacrificed (and gambled) everything, most of his lieutenants had fallen one by one in battle while the prince himself had not fought. All of a sudden he decides to go for the British all alone. In typical movie style he fells more than 15 soldiers with his sword before falling to a firearm.

Like I said earlier, inspite of all its failings, still worth a watch if at least for the photography and background music.