Makante Achan - Review

Director V.M. Vinu, one of the successful filmmakers in Malayalam for the last two decades, has directed nearly 14 films so far, including Pallavur Devanarayanan (1999), Vesham (2004), Bus Conductor (2005) and Yes Your Honour (2006). Balettan (2003) was an average hit while others did not fare too well! His latest offering Makante Achan, exceeds our expectations and is truly watchable.

Makante Achan revolves around Vishvanathan (Sreenivasan), a tough, uncompromising, honest and straightforward village officer, happily living with his family consisting of his wife Rema (Suhasini) and two children. His only aim in life is to make his teenage son Manu (Vineeth Sreenivasan) an engineer. Vishvanathan spends a lot of money on his son's coaching, who has already failed in the entrance test once.

Contrary to his father's wishes, Manu aspires to become a singer and participate in TV reality shows. The father and the son often have heated arguments. Manu's strict disciplinarian father makes him join an engineering entrance exam tutorial centre, run by an ex-army officer Francis (Thilakan). But Manu whiles away his time there also. Finally, Viswanathan reconciles to the fact that his son will never be an engineer! The first half of the film is spent on establishing Sreenivasan's 'Mr. Clean' image; things get serious in the second half and lead to the predicable climax.

Unfortunately, the director has no new story to tell and is recycling his old father-son relationship plots. The script, without any twists or turns, overly depends on the Sreenivasan-Vineeth combination, which gets repetitive. All the characters are the usual stereotypes, but actor Sreenivasan and Vineeth Sreenivasan have done their best to merge with the subject. It's wonderful to see actress Suhasini back in Malayalam after a while, but her role is almost wasted as she remains a mere spectator in the fireworks between the father and son.

Jagathy as Himaval Chaithanya, Salim Kumar as Krishnankutty and all the others in the cast have done justice to their respective characters. There is little to mention about the technical aspects. Cinematography, art-direction and editing are all in sync with the theme and the mood. The two songs have come out rather well, especially 'Sukhada sangeetham, sukritha sangeetham...' If you are a fan of the Sreenivasan duo, you will enjoy this film.

Banner: Seven Arts
Producer: P.C. Mohan
Director: V.M. Vinu
Cast: Sreenivasan, Suhasini, Vineeth Sreenivasan, Nadiya Moidu, Thilakan, Jagathy Sreekumar and Salim Kumar
Story and script: Samjad Narayanan
Lyrics: Anil Panachooraan
Music: M. Jayachandran
Camera: Manoj Pillai