A sufficient salad of his old-time vintage movies, Suresh Gopi and director Viji Thampy has succeeded this time, to create a fast paced thriller in their new offering Bada Dost. The film is techno savvy with punch line dialogues and able performances from the cast including Suresh Gopi and Siddhique, who also happens to be the producer of the film.
The film is all about an honest cop who has to turn to lawlessness to fight an underworld don Gee Varghese alias GV who is the biggest menace over the city of Kochi. Daya Shankar as a cop, who was all behind the don, was routed as GV kills his mute younger brother Nandhu (Manikuttan) and makes his wife immobile. All that was left for Daya Shankar was to resign from the force and join GV'S gang as he offers his hand of friendship, keeping in mind to take revenge someday.
GV calls Daya the Bada Dost. Slowly he becomes the kingpin of Kochi underworld at the same time also takes time to become the benefactor of the poor and the needy. As his hold over the underworld and the masses grows GV finds him harmful to his intentions and slowly starts to work against the Bada Dost.
The film which reminds of Thampi's earlier movies like Sathyameva Jayathe at times, give an interesting narrative as the story is unfolded in flashbacks told by Daya Shankar to Zakhir Ali who is the Police Commissioner all determined to nab Daya for his illegal activities. On the course of the story , Daya charms the commissioner by impressing him about his good samaritan ways of running home for the destitute, hospitals and shelter homes. What follows is how Daya takes over GV in a do or die game with a lot of twists and turns which soon loses direction.
Even though the film lacks an original plot, and is telling a weird story, the racy narration provides ample interest in the proceedings. Suresh Gopi once again comes back to his strengths of power packed performances while Siddhique as GV excels in his different get ups and manovoures. The villain preaching scriptures, this time the Bible, has become one of the regulars of action cinema of our times. Manoj K. Jayan as Zakhir Ali is ok, but the rest of the cast including Jyothirmayi, Karthika and Co has nothing more than a eye candy presence. The item number in which Meghna Naidu sizzles gives us a feel that these gimmicks are here to stay even in Malluwood. The songs by M.Jayachandran also don't do much harm to the mood of the plot.
The director who didn't experiment much from the normal path, set safe the tempo and even with a predestined formula stuff, don't hinder you much from being with the film, even though some scenes and dialogues like the 'hero claiming himself as divine sent to vanquish evildoer' may make a tweaking effect on you. And as it has become the part and parcel of the hero centric histrionics, let them go off to standby. And if you have around two hours left for nothing great, you just can have a look at the Bada Dost.
