The Case Diary Review | This Ashkar Saudan Atrocity Is a Goldmine of Content for Roast Channels

While I was watching the new Malayalam movie The Case Diary starring Mammootty’s nephew Ashkar Saudan, there were these jarring inclusions of songs that had no connection with the movie. The film was a cliche fest that made the entire audience laugh at the movie. So when I decided to do some research about the director Dileep Narayanan, I went to his IMDb page and found out that he did a film named My Dear Machans. When I checked the movie’s details, it had the same producer, almost the same cast, and the same DOP. So I decided to watch that movie’s trailer, and to my shock, I could see a lot of scenes from The Case Diary in the trailer of My Dear Machans. From what I could understand, My Dear Machans was never released. So, these people created a hilariously bad film using its footage and some additional footage that has Ashkar Saudan playing a different role.

CI Christy Sam goes to Tamil Nadu as part of capturing some interstate criminals, and at the end of that mission, he happens to find out the fact that, spoiler alert, his long-lost twin brother, Aju from the orphanage, had died under suspicious circumstances. What we see in the movie The Case Diary is Christy’s investigation to find out who killed his brother.

I remember watching a movie named Achanoru Vazha Vechu, which was produced by AV Anoop, and he did the main role in that movie. The show I attended was a full-house show, and except for me, everyone else in the theater was either a Medimix employee or their family. Even though that movie was atrociously bad, they all were loyal to AV Anoop, who owned Medimix, and the audience behaved very decently. Cut to The Case Diary, I again happened to be in a show that had employees belonging to the producer’s business. I am saying this confidently because they were cheering when certain names of the business endeavors were shown on screen. The Case Diary, as a movie, is so bad that even these people couldn’t stop laughing at it.

The movie is absolutely outdated, but they have the confidence to go ahead with that for a 2025 Malayali audience. Let me describe the first meeting of the hero and heroine. Hero, who is the CI, comes to heroin’s hospital where she is doing the medical checkup of the criminals the hero brought there. She asks the hero to get out of the room as if she can manage the criminals, and when the criminals attack her, our hero comes and saves her. At that moment itself, in slow-motion, she falls in love with the hero. And immediately after, we have a song that is set in the 80s. And this is a song from the shelved film, and hence, they have no connection. The heroine, who couldn’t do anything in the scene I mentioned above, is seen trashing multiple bad guys towards the end of the movie. I mean, it is a goldmine of a film for roast channels, and I can go on and on about the absolute shoddiness of this film.

Ashkar Saudan seems to have cracked a multiple-film deal with Benzy Productions. His last two released films, DNA and Besty, were also produced by the same production house, and despite both of them being utter disasters, there is something else that is making them sign him for more movies. And I am pretty sure acting is not the reason, because in terms of acting, his competition is with the other cousin of Dulqer Salmaan, Maqbool Salman. Towards the end of the film, there are these rhyming, unending dialogues given to his character, and the audience was clapping for him as we clap for kids at the Kindergarten annual day function, for just moving their feet and calling it dancing. Rahul Madhav is doing another character in the film, and it is sad to see such a decline for an actor who once looked like a promising talent. Sakshi Agarwal, the heroine of the movie, is there for the mere glamour factor. Vijayaraghavan is playing the hero’s father’s role. I guess he has EMIs to pay. Riyas Khan comes at the end of the movie as Abram Khureshi from Meesho and gives the audience enough moments to laugh out loud.

I am guessing the lack of satisfaction in the first film may have prompted the producer to make this film using the old footage. Even after that, The Case Diary feels like an insult to the brain cells. If this was the content KV Abdul Naser gave an approval for release, I wonder how bad the other one would have been? I really hope Ashkar Saudan secretly sneaks into any of the theaters that are showing this movie to have a reality check. Because right now, he is providing relief only to one person, and that is Madhav Suresh.