Crazy Gopalan

A project can be prestigious for an actor for if he desperately needed a hit after few flops. But here, in the case of Dileep, the reason is something else since ‘Crazy Gopalan’ comes after ‘Twenty Twenty’ (though he can’t claim the victory alone as an actor, but as a producer he will be the happiest man). Hope we remember the issue between Dileep and Thulasidas(director) regarding the project which has to be produced by Ullattil Sasi and scripted by Udaykrishna-Sibi.K.Thomas in which the former has to do a thief’s role. Thulasidas has given projects like ‘College Kumaran’, ‘Rakshakan’, ‘Avan Chandiyude Makan’ which all bombed in the box office lastyear. For Dileep also the result was same through projects like ‘July 4’, ‘Romeo’, ‘Calcutta News’ and ‘Mulla’. Though the actor has agreed to do the project, he wants the director to come back with a hit. On the other side, the director wants the actor to repay the advance to the producer; he also complained the misbehavior of the actor towards him. Anyway due to the cold war between the actor and the director, the latter was thrown out of the project.

Now the same producer has utilized Dileep’s date to make a new film, ‘Crazy Gopalan’ in which the hero is a thief. The film is scripted and directed by new comer Deepu Karunakaran. He has done a film named ‘Winter’ by Jayaram couple of years back. It is not released sofar. He came from the Adv field and has assisted directors like Priyadarshan before. The cameraman Kannan and editor Manoj for this film are also relatively new names here.

The project ‘Meesamadhavan’ was a big break for the actor years before, it might have inspired him to do the role of thief again. In the beginning itself, the hero ran from the village to the city area. There he got the company of another thief (Salimkumar), they have decided to pay their debts by doing a big robbery. The heroine who is a mysterious character came to their life at that time. Another person (Harisree Asokan) is being caught by the police mistakenly for every robbery done by the hero. In the second half, another thief (Jagathi) joins the party. Thus the cat and rat game by the hero and the villain, who is a rich businessman (Manoj.K.Jayan), is the main plot happening here.

The first few scenes in ‘Crazy Gopalan’ followed by description regarding the villagers by Ranjith (writer-director) are intolerable. We have witnessed such sequences many times before. Also some of the comedy scenes shown there are not up to the mark. There after the theme song “Gopala Gopala…” sung by Shankar Mahadevan for Rahulraj’s music is shown in ultimate speedy motion, filled with witty moments. Once the story happens in the city background, it takes its pace.

The new heroine Radha Varma is introduced in such an area, her performance is below average only. Hero is coming in many getups, there is also a song in which he is shown taking preparations for the revenge, those areas can get claps if we are not aware of the body language of Dileep before. Background score by Rajamani as expected keeps the tempo. With such a story line we can’t expect much here. ‘Crazy Gopalan’reminds us of many comedy films done by the same hero before. As a director, Deepu (younger brother of actress Suchitra) has done his job well.

If there is lot of free time to spend, then you can try ‘Crazy Gopalan’. Don’t forget, it is an usual Dileep film only.

Rating : 2.5 / 5