Review: The Dolphins is low on entertainment

Malayalam film The Dolphins gets preachy after a while, says Paresh C Palicha.

There are people for whom films are a means to express their views or display their innermost feelings.

Anoop Menon, actor, scriptwriter and lyricist, is one such person.

The Dolphins, directed by Diphan and scripted by and starring Anoop, has all these things and much more.

Above all, it has been touted as a comedy with Suresh Gopi in the lead.

The main source of humour here is the use of Thiruvananthapuram dialect by the leading man.

Suresh Gopi plays Panayamuttom Sura, a roguish liquor baron who owns numerous bars in the capital city.

Sura has made it big by being an Abkari contractor and selling spurious liquor. And, as any film super hero would be, he is a teetotaller himself.

Currently Sura is going through a lean patch because an astrologer has predicted that his end is near and the only thing that can save him is the company of a woman, who would come from an unexpected quarter.

Most of the times the scenario unfolding in front of you feels like an insider joke as there is very thin line between Sura the character and Suresh Gopi the star who is making desperate efforts to save his acting career, which is going downhill.

Our man Anoop Menon appears here as Nandan -- a close confidant of Sura -- whose main job is to sing remixed classics, provide practical advice to Sura, be it on how to regain his self confidence and become the old self once again or having an extra marital affair over the cell phone.

The story is punctuated by old Malayalam, Hindi and even English songs, which is amusing for a while, but, afterwards it becomes a tedious exercise to keep track of proceedings.

It is as if Anoop Menon thinks of himself as an enlightened soul who is trying to spread the light of his wisdom for lesser mortals like us through his script. No doubt he throws a couple of interesting things for us to savour.

Yet, few of his esoteric ideas about romance, man-woman relationship and life and death are very hard to digest.

It seems that he realises he is writing a film for the ordinary folks halfway through the story and tries to transform it into revenge drama in the second half before getting to the high point again at the very end of the film.

There are even a couple of subplots that stick out like sore thumbs; one of which is about a serial killer who seems to be inspired by Hollywood film Seven as repeatedly claimed by the investigating officer played by Saiju Kurup, but, actually he looks more like a spoof of the police officer Anoop Menon played in Ee Adutha Kaalathu.

Suresh Gopi appears to be enjoying the outing.

Once in a while he does go overboard though.

Kalpana, who plays his wife Kochuvava, is restrained and becomes perfect foil for Suresh Gopi.

Meghna Raj, who appears as the ethereal beauty who makes Sura swoon with her voice, has nothing much to do.

The Dolphins is high on preaching and low on entertainment.

Rediff Rating: