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Editor Noufal Abdullah’s directorial debut, Nellikkampoyil Night Riders, has this interesting core idea of making the hero face his biggest fear for a resolution to the whole conflict. Set up as a horror comedy with a revenge angle, the movie works in parts, mostly in the humorous aspect. The crisp runtime and occasional humor are keeping the movie afloat, while the predictable trajectory of the script is somewhat making it middling in terms of writing.
Nellikkampoyil is the fictional village in which our Story is set. Shyam, our hero, has just come back home after finishing his college in Mangalore. Shyam has a fear of darkness, and hence, he is afraid of going out at night. In the meantime, the village witnesses the attack of a mysterious man with horse legs. How this whole scenario impacts the love life of Shyam and how he and his friends try to find a solution to the whole thing is what we see in Nellikkampoyil Night Riders.
The movie is written by Sunu A.V. and Jyothish M, who previously wrote Pranaya Vilasam. Like I said, the idea of setting up a weakness for our hero and placing it interestingly in the central conflict of the movie is an interesting one. However, the challenge is in creating other layers and subplots that would gel with the rest of the film. And I would say that’s where the movie falters. Shyam’s romantic Story has relevance as it is the one that is pushing him to face his fear. But the setting up of that love Story felt very typical. At one point, the movie is trying to create an emotional episode featuring the three friends. Since we have only seen the comical bits of the trio till that point, that serious tone isn’t landing that smoothly.
This, I feel, is perhaps the first conventional hero material film for Mathew Thomas. He is pretty much doing all sorts of stuff here: comedy, romance, and even a proper fight. The tension bits are something he has done in his previous films, and in this movie, when such situations happen, we can see him perform with conviction. The issue with the performance is when the meter is on the louder side. The scenes where he is trying to impress his girlfriend or hide his fear, the switching doesn’t have that natural flair. And it becomes a bit too evident because he shares screen space with Sarath Sabha and Roshan Shanavas, who are very good at switching between the comical and serious pitch. Vaazha fame Meenakshi Unnikrishnan is the female lead, and she doesn’t have much to do here other than being the naive girlfriend character. Merin Philip gets a very interesting character, and the performance, visuals, sound, and cuts are really generating the impact that the character was supposed to create.
The backdrop of the Story is an entirely fictional setup. When we see the film, they are not really talking about the year in which the Story is set. However, we do get to know that the Story is happening in that pre-mobile phone era. But the autorickshaw in the movie is a new model. And if you look at language, there is a dialect difference between characters like mother and son. This is a village where you have every accent. These are actually done in such a way as to reduce the logical side of things. Because, with mobile phones or CCTV, the Story won’t hold. So when you transport the Story to such a setting, it sort of helps the movie to manipulate the viewer to focus only on the fear angle of the Story. The humor in dialogues and the physical comedy work in favor of the film. One major weakness I felt was in the characterization of the mystery guy. The writing made that character more of a prankster than someone with a proper agenda. The music was fine, but I thought the movie couldn’t place some of the catchy songs in a way that would get registered with the audience.
Nellikkampoyil Night Riders, on the whole, is a mixed bag entertainer that largely feels enjoyable due to its lighter tone and inclusion of horror comedy. If the challenges were more intricate, along with a well-written antagonist, the movie would have stayed with us. Looking at the way they have placed the idea of facing your fear in this movie, I thought the concept should have pushed itself in a similar space to achieve a more layered result. Something I feel Stree managed to do back in 2018.
Review By: Digitpatrox