Underworld (2019) | Malayalam Short Review: can skip the theatre show to watch on Amazon Prime, their streaming partner.
Details: When a small town ambitious toughie Stalin John (Asif Ali) is sent to prison, his life takes an unprecedented turn by leaping into a different level of a thug life. Arun Kumar Arvind's Underworld centres on the rise & life of Stalin alongside the 3 other characters, Mujeeb (Farhaan Faasil), Solomon (Lal Jr) & Padmanabhan Nair (Mukesh) introduced in the teaser & trailer. The quartet, and the rest of the cast who share complicated relationships with each other may not be heroes with pristine character certificates, nevertheless, within the scope of their shady lives, Stalin and Mujeeb uphold values of friendship, Solomon's man friday (Nishant Sagar) is loyal towards his heartless master, and Muthumani is Perry Mason-esque in her attitude towards her client, Stalin. They are surrounded by devoted family members, and at least a friend, but the final battle seems to be set between Stalin and Solomon as it is their lives & families who have more screen time in comparison to those of Nair & Mujeeb.
The take away from the film could be an enriched vocabulary to describe a range of ruthlessness in people engaged in felony; synonyms of goon & gangster, as they aren't the same, to describe & differentiate Stalin, Mujeeb and Solomon for the jobs they do, attitudes they carry, influences they have, & milieu they live in. However, the film heavily & solely relies on its background score by Yakzan Gary Pereira & Neha Nair to keep the thriller and thug ambience alive in a weak script with cliched scenes, mass punch lines, & slow motion! It could defintiely have been shorter, the second half crisper, the story less predictable with more depth!
Lal Jr looked, behaved & sounded as menacingly vile as his father did in his debut in Kaliyattam (1997). Mukesh played the part of the corrupt septuagenarian politician with elan. Farhaan Faasil comes across as a cute goon, who may have to write his own makeover story like his brother did in the years to come 🤞. Samyuktha Menon, Amalda Liz & Ketki Narayan play there and not there roles, as this isn't their story to tell. Nevertheless, Muthumani as the advocate, and Sreelakshmy as Stalin's mother, make an impact with the little they have to do in this script. So does Srikanth Murali as Potty, Padmanaban's secret keeper, and Meghanathan, Solomon's confidante in the police force. The comic relief is brought about by the surprise cameo of the trio Arjun Ashokan, Balu Varghese and Ganapathy, in that order ;) The books used as props need a mention.
As this tedious long film ends, the audience may not empathise with the director, the gangster story by Shibin Francis, the songs that came and went or the cast. They may remember a few moments of male bonding between Mujeeb & Stalin, and ponder over the evolution of Asif Ali as an actor in the ten years he has been in this industry since Shyamaprasad's Ritu (2009).