‘IDI’ seems to be confusing as it mixes over the top heroism on one hand, and satire and spoofs on the other. It looked like director Sajid Yahiya was having mixed thoughts while making the movie. It needs to be seen how the audience will react to the making as the treatment could prove to be perplexing to many. ‘IDI’ tries to be a laugh riot and does succeed to an extent. But the heroism in between could spoil the effect.Spoofs are something that Malayalam cinema has been looking at in recent times, with ‘Chirakodinja Kinavukal’ setting a precedent. In ‘IDI’ too the movie opens with spoofing some of the exaggerated cop heroisms that one encounters in other language movies like with the Tamil films where the villains go flying and the cop struts about without a care. This spoofing is hilarious and sets the mood for the movie. But contrary to expectations, the movie then zigzags between spoofing and heroism.
IDI in the title stands for Inspector Dawood Ibrahim and this is his story, with the character played by Jayasurya. Though from a wealthy family, all Dawood desires is to become an honest cop and succeeds in becoming an inspector after some struggle. He gets posted at the remote Kollanahalli, a place near the Kerala-Karnataka border. What he expects in his capacity as a police officer is blazes and guns. His time there as the Inspector is what the movie is all about. The movie doesn’t have much of a plot and the story line is very thin. What is different is the treatment given to it. Clichéd and formulistic sequences are given a boot. But again, ‘IDI’ is not really a satire as there is a steady does of high end heroism. Jayasurya does look good in those and this is perhaps the first time that he is doing something like this. The weekend was his, with two of his films releasing. On the other side, the cast including Joju George, Gokulan and Sudhhy Kopa were funny. Saiju Kuruppu and Sunil Sukhada were impressive. Sshivada did not have much to do, but had ample screen presence.
The BGM was in sync with the tone of the movie, with its groovy tunes. The edits and camera too stuck to the treatment that Sajid intended. It is nice that Malaylam cinema is trying out new kinds of cinema instead of sticking to conventions and ‘IDI’ sure pushes the envelope. But I leave it to individual perspectives to see for yourself if it landed right.
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