The highly ambitious and big budget period drama from director Priyadarshan, with his favorite actor Mohanlal is an underwhelming experience. When it comes to grandeur settings and epic fight scenes, the two names that comes to my mind are SLB and SSR. Priyadarshan's film is no match to some of the technical quality they have created. The CGI effect had a real studio feel to it and overall mono-tone was not that pleasing to the eyes. To some extent i can say there was bit of quality in production design but there is nothing to rave about. Now does this film deserved the national award for the best film, i hardly doubt it and once again it proves that the whole National Award affair is a joke now.
The historic story of Kunjali Marakkar is an interesting one and Lal did a great justice to that role. He was solid as usual in his portrayal. Priyan did a good job in showcasing the life, struggle, the war and betrayal and he dramatized the events well largely to fit the stardom of Lal. But with an overloaded casting and not having enough meat for each characters, the crowded screenplay became the biggest bottleneck for this film. It failed to keep your interest on. With a predictable outcome (that indeed is the case for all historic movies), the story line should have been more engaging to keep up with the hype and publicity it had. It had few good moments and was interesting in parts.
Half of the female characters were poorly written and it just felt superficial. A period drama authenticity was missing in terms of language use and timelines. Barring few characters rest just came and went by. Pranav Mohanlal (played the younger version of Kunjali), Siddique and Mangattachan made their presence felt. Overall the fight against Portuguese empire felt bland and failed to meet the expectations. It may suit hardcore Lal fans (hence the generic rating).
Verdict - 3/5( Exhausting)