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Star Cast: Joju George, Murali Gopy, Arjun Ashokan, Saniya Ayyipan
Director: Shaji Kailas
(Photo Credit: Instagram)
What’s Good: The beautiful location
What’s Bad: The script, characters and lack of logic
Loo Break: Anytime you want
Watch or Not?: Skip & Thank Me
Language: Malayalam
Available On: ZEE5
Runtime: 137 minutes
User Rating:
Shaji Kailas’s latest film Varavu stars Joju George in the lead. It is a simple revenge story and, well, that’s it. It is just another revenge story with nothing much to offer. The film has several senior, talented actors, including Vani Vishwanath, Murali Gopy, Baburaj, and Baiju Santhosh, among others. Not just the actors, the script also takes you back in time, and not even intentionally.
Joju George plays a role that we have seen him play many times. The film delves into themes of betrayal, family, revenge, and redemption. However, the script severely limits the film and rushes through the themes instead of developing the characters and letting the audience feel for them. The major disappointment is that the film focuses too much on style, with unnecessary slow-mo sequences and stylized fight scenes, rather than investing in the narrative.
Varavu Movie Review: Script Analysis
The film begins with Paulson (Joju George) returning to his high-range hometown in Kerala on a 10-day parole. Even before he reaches his hometown, someone attempts to murder him on the bus. However, he turns out to be a super-powerful human (as most heroes are in movies) and thrashes all the armed men without so much as a scratch on him. We then learn through flashbacks that he has lost his happy, cheerful family and that the authorities sent him to prison on a false murder charge.
He is currently out on a 10-day parole and decides to exact vengeance from the people who did him and his family dirty. We get to see flashbacks of him with his happy family, which includes his brother, Willy (Arjun Ashokan), and his sister, Daisy (Sukanya). However, everything falls apart when Willy falls for Lisha (Saniya Iyappan), the daughter of Planter Kochettan, one of the most powerful and richest men in the town.
What follows is highly predictable! The story is quite early-2000s-coded, with many familiar faces from that era appearing in the film. It feels like someone rejected this story in the 2000s, only for the makers to recycle it now. However, the plot fails to sync with today’s times and the advancements that have come with them. Despite setting the film in the present, the script feels so unintelligible that the characters seem outright stupid or assume the audience is one.
Varavu Movie Review: Star Performance
Joju George is the lead, as we have established. He is a fine actor, but at this point, given how filmmakers have stereotyped him into intense roles, it is difficult to tell whether he is this person in real life or has simply become habituated to the role. The actor has more punches, kicks, and slow-motion sequences to focus on than emotions. For a man who has faced the biggest tragedy of his life and continues to do so, he shows no signs of sorrow or guilt. Arjun Ashokan makes a special appearance in the film and, in his limited time, does the heavy lifting of displaying normal human emotions.
Planter Kochettan (Murali Gopy) has only one expression — the classic villain look, where he is always ready to hack people around him to death. He is the person who would slash his cook to death if he got extra salt in his food as well. Even when someone brutally murders his son in front of his eyes, his expression barely changes.
The women characters also take quite an outdated approach. Lisha, as Willy’s girlfriend, has no agency in the film. Her father kills her loved one and destroys his family, but the film gives her no say or reaction to it. The actress only walks around or drives in the film. Sister Daisy gets the saintly role and, again, contributes little to the narrative.
And then there is the token female senior officer who investigates the death of a fellow cop. Vani Vishwanath plays the role, and many Malayalees might be familiar with her from her regular appearances in the 90s and 2000s. Despite portraying her as a tough senior cop, the film makes her miserably fail to uncover crimes happening in broad daylight around her. And these crimes are not petty thefts but mass murders!
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Varavu Movie Review: Direction, Music
Shaji Kailas has directed the film. He is a highly respected and talented filmmaker who was at his prime in the 90s and early 2000s. He undoubtedly knows his craft, but the script, like his prime, seems rooted in the 90s and early 2000s.
The film focuses more on style and creating high moments rather than the content. The film’s backdrop is quite soothing, as it is set in the high-range area of Kerala. There are dense forests in the region, with most parts covered in mist. However, internally, the people commit murder as if it’s their daily profession.
There are cops in the town, unlike in some movies where their presence isn’t introduced until the very end. Yet, the cops are the most poorly written set of characters and are almost caricature-ish.
The music is also nothing to speak of. The film’s BGM seems forced whenever we see the hero or the villains walk in or out, especially after committing murder. The characterization is so poor that you do not feel for them, even when the people close to the heroes are brutally murdered. All you care about is the film ending. With such poorly written characters, even the BGM cannot help but evoke emotion in the audience.
Varavu Movie Review: The Last Word
This film had a limited run in theaters, and I do not even blame the audience. The film is heavily 2000s-coded, an era even ChatGPT could not bring back into trend. The script was best left there and not revisited. Such revenge stories are old news and have nothing new to offer an audience that has evolved in its taste in cinema.
Varavu Trailer
Stay tuned to Koimoi for more Malayalam movie reviews!
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