Apoorva Puthranmar Review | A Wannabe Religious Satire With Familiar Laughter Gags

If you look at the kind of movies Vishnu Unnikrishnan and Bibin George have done, almost all of them have a familiar texture and elements. Most of them have this feel of a wannabe Benny P Nayarambalam script, as the structuring of those movies will remind you of the kind of movies of that era. The new film starring both Vishnu and Bibin as main leads and directed by Rejith and Sreejith, Apoorva Puthranmar, is an attempt to create a religious satire. While the dialogue humor in many parts in the second half is making us laugh, on the whole, the movie feels like a safe bet skit with all sorts of formulaic compromises.

Sebanos is a very religious man in his village, and he was sad about the fact that many of the believers chose not to attend church, including his two sons, Jinto and Jijo. As Sebanos tried to convince people to come to the church, something unprecedented happened, and it led to a situation that made people believe in certain miracles. The back story of all those events is what we see in this movie.

SPOILERS AHEAD! The core idea here is to make fun of the blind beliefs of religious people, and the second half of the movie is designed to incorporate many instances that would show us the level to which people can go when they hear miracles are happening. However, to get there, the writers are somewhat going after all the village movie cliches. Our heroes are going after these fair-skinned girls, and we even have a song titled “Cringe Song.” The routine tea shop jokes and sentiments between the father and sons are all happening. Only a few statements made in those areas are important to the story; the rest of it is just cliched laughter gags added just for the sake of lengthening the movie.

The area in the second half, where the script takes the shape of a satire, is where the movie is able to score. But why it all happened is due to a major stupid decision-making of these two sons, and the whole Daddy’s wish angle feels too contrived. The predictable yet humorous mockery of believers in the movie is funny, and there is a good chance that you would assume the whole film is good if you end up watching only those scenes as clips or reels in the future. Since the movie was moving forward without many conflicts, I was hoping Nishanth Sagar’s character would have some significant space in the film. However, his track got wrapped up very quickly as if the movie ran out of budget. The cinematography loves to use soft focus wherever possible to make the film visually beautiful. And the conversation scenes are edited in a way where you would wonder whether the editor was getting paid for the number of cuts.

Both Vishnu Unnirishnan and Bibin George are performing the characters in their typical established style. Lalu Alex, as the father of the duo, gets to be this cool dad again, and he is given these extremely dramatic dialogues, which he delivers in that old-fashioned manner. Ashokan plays the role of a priest. Since that character is someone who knows about everything, he gets to portray a range of emotions. Sajin Cherukayil is the sidekick, comical relief, along with Dharmajan Bolgatty. Ammayra Goswami and Payal Radhakrishna are the leading women of the movie, and the movie is not demanding anything from them other than looks. We even have a mass scene where the heroes, who once fell for these women for their looks, teach them a lesson after these women went after them, seeing their wealth.

The satirical element in the movie is the only thing that gives it some sort of uniqueness. But even that angle is explored on a peripheral level, focusing only on the skit jokes it can extract from an idea. A few people in the theater where I saw this movie walked out during the first half because the story was not going anywhere. And because of that, the unoriginal religious mockery that happens in the second half feels like a relief.