Punyalan Agarbattis Review

Ranjith Shankar seems to have realised what all sells in Mollywood with the previous two films `Molly Aunty Rocks' and `Arjunan Sakshy'. And with all that newly acquired expertise is his new movie 'Punyalan Agarbathis' presented as a comedy which aptly tells a satirical social cause.

The movie from its opening reels take a lighter vain and is  told in historic land called Thrissur presented in all splendour in is title song. Joy Thakkolkkaran is a typical Thrissur based wannabe  entrepreneur who dreams of becoming an Ambani one day. With exceptional talking skills he has impressed many and as convinced some rich men to invest on his plans which but failed midway. His supportive wife Anu (Nyala Usha) and his closest friend cum manger Greenu Sharma(Aju Varghese) are also heavily impressed by his ideas and believes that he will make a name one day.

The latest of Joy's ideas is to make incense sticks out of elephant dung, made in the brand name `Punyalan Agarbathis'.  But after setting up a plant for the same , Joy is facing tussle's from Devasvom Board who rejects his plea to provide him with elephant dung.Joy approaches the court and gets a vedict in his favour but a harthal announced by the popular political party affects him much more than he ever thought. With no other options to climb over the crisis, he new wages a war against the political party which leads him into further problems. What follows forms the rest of the tale told in an interesting but unconvincing manner.

The highlight of the movie made in a wafer-thin plot inspired from many films like `Midhunam' to Varavelppu' is the liberal dose of satirical gags sprinkled all through. The dialogues are heavily loaded with sarcasm and is interesting. Together with the topnotch performances from the cast lead by Jayasuriya, who appears confident than in recent films the movie travels over the little blemishes in realisatation. Jayasuriya makes the best use of the Thrisur slang and delivers an exciting performance that could be called a comeback. And in equally impressive roles are Sreejith Ravi, and  Sunil Sugatha  while Nyla USha has a fine chemistry with Jayasuriya.  Aju Varghese , T G Ravi,Rachana, Idavela Babu and Sudheer Karamana also comes up in fine support.

The direction in the first half is fine but in the later half, it appears bumpy at times but the scriptwriter in Renjih has taken adequate measures to avoid the regular cliched sequences in the climax. The caricaturist mode of presenting the court and party meetings meet with needed success. The technical sides are fine and the music by Bijibal needs special mention. His BGs cores also increase our liking  for the movie.

In the final analysis, this `Punyalan Agarbathis' is one film that will provide Jayasuriya with that much evading hit .The movie will also be of interest to families, and will make an impact as a social satire. So  fans of Jayasuriya, Grab your popcorn and be at the theatres for a headache free entertainment.

Rating - 6.5/10