Mohanlal plays ‘Chandrasekhar’, the head of the newly constituted Metro Crime Stopper Cell, functioning at Kochi to try ways to check the increasing crimes. Though a little laid-back in his approach post a broken marriage, Chandrasekhar is a brainy, risk taking cop who likes to live with his instincts. His former wife ‘Deepthy’ is now a successful criminal lawyer and their daughter ‘Dakshayani’ shares a special bonding with her father.
‘Chandrasekhar’ is back in action with his sidekicks ‘Kishore’ (Narain) and ‘Rasheed’ (Jagathy Sreekumar) when he hears about a case where a mentally ill ‘Jeremi’ abducts three girls from a popular mall. After being back to limelight, ‘Chandrasekhar’ interestingly starts getting printed letters from an unknown person inviting him to take part in a game where this mysterious one is starting to kill victims in an alphabetical order of their names. As our protagonist is easily drawn into this mind game, the rest of the movie is plotted as if in a chessboard, where each of the players tries to get the better of the other.
Mohanlal, Priyamani, Narain, Jagathy Sreekumar
Director:
B Unnikrishnan
Music:
Deepak Dev
After the super hit movie Madambi, B Unnikrishnan and Mohanlal have tried their luck at the Box Office once again with Grandmaster. With the movie being pitched as an investigative cop film, the expectations surrounding it were quite high. And in one of the rarest of the feats in Mollywood, the director-actor duo has played to the demands and has delivered one movie that engages and thrills the viewers.
Watch the movie for:
- One of the best genuine thrillers in recent times with very little clichéd sequences.
- Mohanlal in an impressive and engaging performance.
- The suspense is well kept and the leads to it are also engaging.
- Impressive one liners and racy narrative, particularly in the latter half.
- The songs by Deepak Dev are also good and wisely pictured.
- The technical sides of the movie, the camera by Vinod Illampalli and editing by Manoj are top-notch.
Skip the movie for:
- Uncanny resemblances to many English movies including The Alphabet Murders (1965) and Taken.
- The first half is a little slow with the ‘Jeremi’ episode largely forgettable in otherwise fine sequences.
- A little carelessness in direction in some scenes.
- A Mohanlal show all over with other actors left with too little to do.
- The climax sequences are very similar to that of the recent hit Seniors.
- The background scores are often disturbing and loud.
With not so affecting shortcomings, Grandmaster can be a great treat for the lovers of the thrillers. Packaged just like an English thriller, the movie is likely to make theatres and the fans merry.