Flask Review | A Movie That Had the Potential to Be Character-Driven but Chose to Stay Goofy

When the first half of the latest Malayalam film Flask was over, most people in the audience were unimpressed, and I could hear one guy yelling at his friend for dragging him in for this movie. However, by the time the movie ended, the frustration among the audience was less. Flask was one of those movies where I felt disappointment because it really had the scope for a better film, that was political and character-driven. But by opting for a mostly eccentric pitch to narrate a predictable story, the film ends by making you feel that they wasted a really good opportunity.

Jyothikumar is a civil police officer, and his lack of attention in handling things led to his punishment. With his influence in the force, he was able to reduce the harshness of the punishment, and he was appointed as the PSO of Judge Venkitesh Balaji. The seemingly harmless job of PSO, which is also nicknamed Flask, became one hell of a challenge for Jyothikumar because of the strict and bossy attitude of Balaji. How this relationship evolves when these two are abducted by Naxalites is what we see in this movie.

Whenever Rahul Riji Nair, the director of this movie, has tried to make a mainstream commercial film, it has not really landed well. And one of the reasons why I found those mainstream films, namely, Dakini, Kho Kho, and Keedam, underwhelming was the way they were written with stiff dialogues that sucked out the realness from those films. When it comes to Flask, it has tonal similarity to the web series Rahul created for SonyLIV, Jai Mahendran. The Saiju Kurup we see here is basically Mahendran in a police uniform. In terms of the way the dialogues are written and scenes are staged, I would say there is improvement compared to the three films I mentioned before.

In the first half of the movie, we do not get any new information beyond the fact that Jyothikumar is not passionate about his job and the judge is a grumpy guy. Every scene we see in the first half has the same story. And it will be some silly mistake made by Jyothikumar. Sometimes the movie is making him a joker, just for the sake of humor. A policeman arguing with young folks for disliking a genre of music and messing up his duty won’t evoke any empathy towards him. In the second half, in the kidnapping episode, there is this funny tussle happening between Jyothi and Balaji, and the irreverence of Jyothi in those scenes was making it fun to watch.

During that naxalite chapter, we are getting to know both characters in a more personal space, and I thought that the kind of humor we saw till that point was not the one this story deserved. See, the story arc here is not an unpredictable thing. Anyone who has seen a handful of films would know that by the time the movie ends, this whole hostage situation would change the equation between the main characters. But looking at some of the bits towards the climax, I felt it had the opportunity to explore ideas like a vulnerable police man, the reality of naxalites, and the injustice that made them these militant forces, etc. Even after the movie, we don’t know the reason why Balaji is unnecessarily irritable, and there are these contradicting visuals of him ill-treating Jyothi and others, and then singing Balikudeenrangale at a different point. But the kind of comedy we see till that point, filled with goof-ups, just doesn’t match with the emotional layer the story aspires to achieve.

Like I already said, Saiju Kurup’s Jyothikumar is Mahendran wearing Khaki. The script has already made that character a caricature for the sake of humor, and Saiju Kurup is not able to reduce that tonality and make us empathize with that character. Suresh Krishna as the judge, Venkitesh Balaji, is a lot more believable even after the deeds of that character being a bit too much. The accent and the body language he has maintained for that character are also pretty impressive. Siddharth Bharathan as the Naxal leader was fine in his role. Even though it was a small role, Aattam director Anand Ekarshi’s performance was really good. Sreejith Babu, Renjith Shekhar, Aswathy Sreekanth, and a few more names are in the star cast of the film.

In comparison with the other movies Rahul Riji Nair has made in the past (only the ones that got proper theater release), Flask feels like a much refined one, especially with the way he writes dialogues. However, having said that, the treatment given to the story is uneven, and somewhere I felt the movie had the scope to become something emotionally overwhelming like a Thamaasha, but the decision to go for these comical bits reduced it into an overdone comedy with a shallow drama layer.