First of all, a huge shout out for the immense guts with which the movie has been made. And kudos to chettan and chechi’s for not burning Kerala down. Can’t imagine this theme or concept being released anywhere else in India. The movie deals with addiction as the theme and how religion is used/misused rather, as the all potent addictive of all time. The story travels on how people use blind faith as a cash cow and Christianity has been marked as the sample religion. Replace it with any other religion the situation and scenes would exactly be the same. After watching this movie, my respect for Fahadh as an actor has grown leaps and bounds. Not that it is of any matter to him but my movie watching list is surely enriched by one greatly talented actor. He owns every single minute of the 150 plus minutes of running time. Initial scenes are having tamil dialogues and I was wondering whether I am watching the tamil version. Later realized that the setup was in Kanyakumari. Be it as a over energetic morale booster presenter, loving brother worried sick about his depressed from childhood younger sibling, especially the scenes where he carefully and playfully removes the knife and hammer, heart wrenching scenes. For such cry-a-thon potential scenes, the subtlety with which they’ve been handled are amazing. Gautham Menon is casted in another role, just for the blank and unblinking look I guess. Him and the other guy with him, play the proverbial devils, luring Fahadh into becoming the false Pastor and groom him to lure people on their harvest meets. The transformation from meek guy into someone who owns the stage in front of thousands of people, cackling with energy is not everyone’s cup of chaaya. Fahadh aces those scenes and the menace with which he deals with the anchor during the interval block is pakka mass. Post interval, due to repeats of previous scenes and trying to squeeze in every biblical fable into half of a movie slot, makes the second half very crowded and distant from an astonishing first half. Mary Magadelene ala Nazriya portions could’ve been done away with it. Showing her as smoking drinking prostitute is as refreshing a thought as movie posters from mid 1940’s.
Obviously there are so many controversies around such a controversial topic, depicting one religion alone in a grey light, especially considering, it happens to be the world’s most followed one. Add to that all the lead characters are from the second most followed religion and the movie happens to be based on a region where these two are neck and neck in followers. There is a silent word out there that, the movie was given a kill sign right from go and none of the reviews have been kind to it. With such a bumper opening, the rest of the shows turned into a trickle eventually heralding its quick entry into OTT. It would be a really difficult movie for any sensitive follower of that faith to accept and runs the risk of being a blatant attempt at mockery of their practices. But the screenplay has been absolutely air tight and not a single scene demeans any thing religious and in fact that hampers the flow in second half. But these kind of movies need wider and broader release across all languages and religions as well, for people to take a good look at what they do in the name of religion and where they are going wrong. The movie never ever takes a stand saying religions are wrong, but those who trade in the name of faith deserve the punishment meted out. I liked the movie especially for the first half and for vinayagan’s portion on the second half. A must watch for everyone.
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