Masters Review

Malayalees, in the recent times, had been rejecting all the formula stuffs and `old wine in the new bottle' movies, resulting in the downfall of many of the films from the big stars. And as  Prithvi was getting ready to meet the cine goers with his first  film of the year `Masters', the question often aired was how far freshness can Prithvi and his crew offer  to the Mollywood viewers. The movie which also highlighted the presence of Tamil actor -director Sasikumar to Pia Bajpaai and teaming up of Prithvi with Johny Antony, a director who is specialised in making light hearted moves, clearly created some high flying expectations. Now after watching the movie, the final word is that Prithvi and his crew has fairly succeeded in making a watchable thriller, and the rest of the performance in the B O will now depend solely on the fanfare of the star and its marketing.

The movie has  Prithviraj as Sreeramakrishnan I P S , an young upright ACP whose only big friend is  Milan Paul ,(Sasikumar) a apprehensive journalist, who fear of inviting troubles with his  juicy stories . An intense friendship that started at their college days,  Sree regularly  takes advices from his journo friend whenever he alights  on an investigative spree.

Sree is now assigned to find clues into the murder of a prominent businessman, who has been thrice labelled in rape cases. The murder is reported to have taken place by suicide bombs set by  an young girl named Daksha( Pia Bajpei) who interestingly doesn't have any relationship with the killed person . Shortly thereafter Sreeramakrishan is fated to see some more killings in similar fashion where the actual killers who are unknown to the killed ones are also found dead in the operation. As dead bodies starts piling up, Sree traces the backgrounds  of each of the victims and finds a curious link between the incidents. This forms the backbone of the movie which interests with its wise scheming of the central plot.

It's not the crew or the director but the  debutante scriptwriter Jinu Abraham who  must be surely applauded for weaving a fine suspenseful  thriller from a shallow plot. The crew must also  be congratulated for taking up a theme that deals with the trauma and psyche of innocent victims of rapes and scandals, that has become the daily talk of the state. Johny Antony, who is for the first time into a full length action thriller, takes time to engage us in the opening reels, but offer a intriguing interval and second half, who is devoid of any big pitfalls. The only problem with the movie is that Sasikumar's character of Milan Paul, is not in the lines of his powerful roles that the actor-director has done in his Tamil flicks and his dubbing and lip-sync fails big time, even to give us an air of a miscast. The lead duo also shares no camaraderie and the director's attempts to work on their friendship in the initial sequences falls flat. The climax to the story is not bad, but considering the pace  punch and superb builtup of the second half, it could have been better to opt for a more unpredictable finale.

Taking about performances, Prithvi is in a dependable role that moves in a straight line path. The young actor has done his best and is appealing in the role. Sasikumar  in his debut role is fine, but could have been of more impact , if the dubbing side managed to work a little more sharper. The rest of the cast including Salimkumar, Saikumar , Biju menon, Pia, Mukesh, Sandhya and Ananya does justice to their roles, though they all have very little screen time.

The technical sides of the movie are also fine with Ranjan Abraham making some finer cuts, especially in the second half. Madhu Neelakantan has etched out some good, appropriate visuals and thrilling chases and fight scenes, while the only song `Suhurthu'  and its visuals remain average. Gopi Sundar's title track is fine, but the BG scores in total fails to reach the benchmark set by the composer in his early films.

All in all, this Masters' is a differently made thriller that may gratify your expectations for an onetime watch. As the ruling superstars of Mollywood fails again to keep their films afloat, it need to be seen how the young star Prithviraj bring in the masses to the screening venues with this fine thriller.

Ratings -6/10