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Pranchiyettan & the Saint – Review

After the peculiar ‘Thiruvananthapuram slang’ that worked wonders for him in Rajamanikyam, Mammootty has tried his luck with ‘Thrissur slang’ in Ranjith’s Pranchiyettan & the Saint. Well, it has done wonders once again.

The accented tone and the dialogues, which are top notch, are perhaps the best thing about the film as well. Mammootty has done the role of a simple man, having a golden heart, with honesty and conviction that makes it an enjoyable film.

Pranchiyettan or Cherammel Eenasu Francis (Mammootty) is a wealthy rice trader based in Thrissur. He has a great complex about not being enough educated and believes that it is the reason why he is not getting acceptance in the society like many others. Pranchi and his cronies try really hard to “buy” some recognition and respect, like the ‘Padmashri’ honour for instance.

The whole film comprises of all these incidents from his life that Pranchi narrates to St.Francis, who appears before him one night. His childhood sweetheart, Omana (Khushboo), is by now married to his rival, Dr.Jose (Siddique). Pranchi develops a soft corner for a girl named Padmashri (Priyamani) sometime later, but never have the courage to reveal his feelings to her.

In fact, the storyline is a mix of such issues that Pranchi come across at various points of time. But the problem is that most of them look a bit too trivial and that is true even when he deals with two important issues in the story, the one involving his feelings for the girl named Padmashri and the other, with a boy named Pauly (Master Ganapathy).

However what takes the film ahead is its packaging, which looks fresh, even when the story moves ahead mostly without a definite focus. Ranjith has done a decent job, considering the excellent dialogues that almost cover up the flaws in the script. His voice, which has been used for the Saint, has a captivating charm and has done wonders for the film. Venu’s camera and Ouseppachan’s music are among the highlights of the film.

In a role of a loser, of course except for the money that he makes aplenty, Mammootty excels as the extremely likeable Pranchiyettan. He looks convincing with his style, mannerisms and dialogue delivery. Innocent, who plays one of his chums, has done a brilliant job. Priyamani and Khushboo come up with fine performances, in their brief roles.

Pranchiyettan & the Saint scores mainly with its imaginative presentation, though it loses the steam to a great extent especially in the second half. Of course, it succeeds in providing quite a few genuine laughs and well, Mammootty’s brilliant performance provides an engrossing feel to the viewer. Have some fun watching this one!

(source – sify)

Written by Rabz

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