Medium : Malayalam
Starring : Jagathi, Jagadheesh, Suraj Venjarammood, Salim Kumar, Kalpana
Director : Ali Akbar
Music : Hari
This is the time of comedy oriented films. The success of films like 'Happy Husbands', 'Gulumaal' and 'My Big Father' might have provoked the director Ali Akbar to come up with a sequel for his own comedy hit in the 90's, 'Junior Mandrake'. The director had given other notable films like 'Mukhamudra', 'Ponnuchami' etc. 'Junior Mandrake' had got an unusual theme where the st
atue model of a head becoming an unlucky thing for persons attached with it and it is remembered for an excellent performance by none other than legendary actor Jagathi Sreekumar. Rajan P Dev, who did the father role of Jagadeesh in the previous version is no more now. The current sensation Suraj Venjarammood have been added along with Salim Kumar in the new version.
The film opens by showing the scenes of 'Junior Mandrake' along with the title credits. In the climax of that movie, the unlucky statue model (mandrake) is in the hands of the driver (Indrans). Thus here you can see the same character suffering a lot, by keeping that model with him. As per idea of Sahridayan (Jagadeesh), the driver returns the model to a rich man, who is doing financing business now. When the model reaches the rich man's hands, his problem begins. Now Sahridayan reaches there to help him and his wife (Kalpana). They decided to make money out of it by dividing the material into different pieces. Some people offers them big amount of money for destroying their enemies with the help of the mandrake model. Later, the villain character namely 'Senior Mandrake' appears, who is the elder brother of 'Junior Mandrake'. He tries to rob the mandrake model and in the end, after a group fighting the villain is killed.
Though 'Junior Mandrake' was an average low budget film, it was a watchable one at that time, as it has got a bulk of comedy sequences. Here you don't have such scenes. Salim Kumar, who comes in the mentally disturbed person tried best to create laughing. Suraj Venjarammood, who comes in the SI role is not using his usual slang, but Kalpana compensated it by talking in former's slang through out. Jagadeesh has got a couple of tribal songs to do, which is not good to hear and at the same time those visuals will make you boring and restless. The songs by music director Hari is below average.
The interior designing for Jagathi's office is created in computer graphics and it looks too amateur also. I wonder why the director had not called the art director for doing such an easy task. The opening scene featuring Indrans might have been good if it was done in the 'Three Men Arm
y' days, where Indrans was having a wide mass support. The director had recreated the sequence of 'burying inside the ground with head only on sand' using Suraj and Jagadeesh and made it vulgar. This is the best example for a film with maximum number of extra artists placed in each and every scenes, most of their performances showed that they are 'extras' only. The climax shot showing Bin Laden is the extreme childish creativity from the director. Raju Krishna's cinematography is ordinary only. Jagathi has not created big laughing shots as previous version, but he is here in his usual style. Ali Akbar, who is also the script writer should have done more home work before going for such an adventure.
It is better to watch 'Junior Mandrake' once again in tv channels, rather than watching 'Senior Mandrake' in theaters...
Rating : 3 / 10 (revised)
Starring : Jagathi, Jagadheesh, Suraj Venjarammood, Salim Kumar, Kalpana
Director : Ali Akbar
Music : Hari
This is the time of comedy oriented films. The success of films like 'Happy Husbands', 'Gulumaal' and 'My Big Father' might have provoked the director Ali Akbar to come up with a sequel for his own comedy hit in the 90's, 'Junior Mandrake'. The director had given other notable films like 'Mukhamudra', 'Ponnuchami' etc. 'Junior Mandrake' had got an unusual theme where the st
atue model of a head becoming an unlucky thing for persons attached with it and it is remembered for an excellent performance by none other than legendary actor Jagathi Sreekumar. Rajan P Dev, who did the father role of Jagadeesh in the previous version is no more now. The current sensation Suraj Venjarammood have been added along with Salim Kumar in the new version. The film opens by showing the scenes of 'Junior Mandrake' along with the title credits. In the climax of that movie, the unlucky statue model (mandrake) is in the hands of the driver (Indrans). Thus here you can see the same character suffering a lot, by keeping that model with him. As per idea of Sahridayan (Jagadeesh), the driver returns the model to a rich man, who is doing financing business now. When the model reaches the rich man's hands, his problem begins. Now Sahridayan reaches there to help him and his wife (Kalpana). They decided to make money out of it by dividing the material into different pieces. Some people offers them big amount of money for destroying their enemies with the help of the mandrake model. Later, the villain character namely 'Senior Mandrake' appears, who is the elder brother of 'Junior Mandrake'. He tries to rob the mandrake model and in the end, after a group fighting the villain is killed.
Though 'Junior Mandrake' was an average low budget film, it was a watchable one at that time, as it has got a bulk of comedy sequences. Here you don't have such scenes. Salim Kumar, who comes in the mentally disturbed person tried best to create laughing. Suraj Venjarammood, who comes in the SI role is not using his usual slang, but Kalpana compensated it by talking in former's slang through out. Jagadeesh has got a couple of tribal songs to do, which is not good to hear and at the same time those visuals will make you boring and restless. The songs by music director Hari is below average.
The interior designing for Jagathi's office is created in computer graphics and it looks too amateur also. I wonder why the director had not called the art director for doing such an easy task. The opening scene featuring Indrans might have been good if it was done in the 'Three Men Arm
y' days, where Indrans was having a wide mass support. The director had recreated the sequence of 'burying inside the ground with head only on sand' using Suraj and Jagadeesh and made it vulgar. This is the best example for a film with maximum number of extra artists placed in each and every scenes, most of their performances showed that they are 'extras' only. The climax shot showing Bin Laden is the extreme childish creativity from the director. Raju Krishna's cinematography is ordinary only. Jagathi has not created big laughing shots as previous version, but he is here in his usual style. Ali Akbar, who is also the script writer should have done more home work before going for such an adventure. It is better to watch 'Junior Mandrake' once again in tv channels, rather than watching 'Senior Mandrake' in theaters...
Rating : 3 / 10 (revised)
1 comment:
"Now Sahridayan reaches there to help his sister (Kalpana), who in turn is rich man's wife." - Not correct. Sahridayan is rich man's brother.
I dont know what is there to give a 4/10!!!
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