Director: Viji Thampi
Starring: Jagadish, Siddique, Jagathy Sreekumar, Biju Menon and Nayana
Music: M Jayachandran, Lyrics: Gireesh Puthanchery
A film titled April Fool releasing on April 1 and starring comedy stalwarts of Malayalam film industry like Jagathy Sreekumar, Jagadish, Siddique, Mukesh, Ashokan and Lal, was expected to be a rollercoaster ride of entertainment. But actually, the movie made every viewer a fool in the end!
April Fool, without any doubt, is inspired by the Bollywood film Bheja Fry, by Sagar Bellary. Directed by veteran Viji Thampi, the story of April Fool revolves around two characters Krishnanunni (Jagadish) and Rakesh Menon (Siddique). Rakesh plays MD of a reputed music recording firm.
The story goes like this: A city club, which Rakesh visits every weekend, regularly hosts a special programme inviting any artiste to perform on the dais, and make a fool of themselves. The club members, including Rakesh, find this a stressbuster, but the artistes usually leave the dais humiliated.
One day, the club members ask Rakesh to arrange an artiste. Rakesh happens to know about Krishnanunni, an Income Tax inspector and singer who is a diehard fan of movie songs and artistes. He invites the inspector to the Friday party, but to ensure that the latter is a ‘real fool,’ Rakesh invites Krishnanunni home for a trial performance.
On the day, Rakesh accidentally falls into a swimming pool and gets injured. Even though Krishnanunni comes to Rakesh’s home in the evening, the club is forced to cancel the event due to Rakesh’s injury.
There by chance people find a letter written by Rakesh’s wife calling an end to their relationship. With the help of Krishnanunni, the ailing Rakesh tries to trace his wife. Sarath (Biju Menon), a struggling music director, also comes to help them. The result is utter chaos let loose by Krishnamurthy, who cannot do a single thing without messing it up further.
The movie is full of comedy scenes, but alas, none of them are bearable! Even as Bheja Fry had many enjoyable moments throughout the movie and was successful in satisfying a select audience, its ‘copycat’ Malayalam movie lacks the same appeal. The script by Jagadish is poor and the humour distastefully handled which eventually kills the story. The characterisation doesn’t work well in the movie and that makes it a real intolerable experience to the audience. It’s once again proved that the script decides the fate of a movie.
Siddique and Biju Menon as usual have performed convincingly with some of their stock mannerisms, but Jagadish as an actor and scriptwriter is poor. Nayana who has done the role of Rakesh’s wife is the worst in the movie. Technically too, the movie is weak.
One can see many boring scenes throughout that could have been avoided. Barring the mind-boggling title graphics by ANTS, Thiruvananthapuram, there is nothing special to mention about the technical aspects, which don’t impress viewers in any way.
The film has two songs which are OK, but from veterans like music director like M Jayachandran, music lovers expect something better. The same goes for director Viji Thampi, who has wielded the megaphone 26 times before this movie. For him, this is the second back-to-back flop movie after Utharaa Swayamvaram.
Undoubtedly, this time too, Viji Thampi wasted a good opportunity to utilise a bunch of top class artistes to the fullest.
Critic: Shyam PV
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