It has been sad that that even after finding some hits in the commercial sphere, some directors still stick to their original formula o family flicks , rather than readjusting to the tastes of the current day viewers. Widely publicized as a sports based movie, Sundardas's 'Rebeccca Uthup Kizhakkemala' (RUK)is one such movie which hardly have any big sports related story as promised but have the regular formula stuff of family dramas painted all over the tale of a lady athlete.
The movie told in a flashback, opens with a gang of three (Nirmal, Praveen and Niyas), taking a trip back to their hilly and foggy village of the college days-Kizhakkemala. The high range village is known only for the 400m athlete Rebecca (Ann Augustine), daughter of Uthup(Saikumar), who had won a gold medal in the recent Asian games.
As Rebecca emerges a big star, Uthup, who had a humble beginning as a rubber tapper after eloping with Shoshamma(Shari) the daughter from an affluent family from Kanjirapally, finds many from his wife's family taking active interest in their life. The once deserted brothers of Soshamma invites her back to the big family and had Rebecca betrothed with Kuruvila(Jishnu) in order to revamp and strengthen the family ties.
Rebecca now starts practising for Olympics, but the arrival of a new coach (Siddharth)who happens to be her childhood friend turns the tale twisted. Apart from a few in the big family aiming for a revenge on Uthup, some other guys who have an eye on Rebecca are also around to play foul .As family ties and dignity suddenly finds new takers, Rebecca is left between her professional aspirations of becoming a world class athlete and the traditional intentions of her large family and community.
A little overlong at 148 minutes, 'RUK' has plenty of trivial characters who doesn't have much of importance in the central theme. But still the screenplay by V C Ashok offer a lot of unwanted space to all of them, letting loose the central theme. The editor Bijith Bala could have severely applied some cuts to lessen the movie by atleast 25 minutes. The first half of the entire movie is revolving around the family affairs of Rebecca and Uthup ending up as another boring exercise.
Moreover, the plumply physique of Ann, hardly matches the central character who appear surprisingly naive in some of the sequences, even in the decisions over her life long aspirations. The directorial style by Sundardass is mostly old fashioned, which also fails to give any momentum to the narratives. Some terrible miscasts and less popular male stars also takes the life out of the movie. The characters like that of Kalabhavan Mani's `Kochachan' has not big relevance in the movie, but is wasted with a comic makeup. Even the BG Scores by Ratheesh Vega are poor and routine, though the remix of `Kizhakkemala' is a pleasant hear.
In the acting side, Ann is fine with Rebecca's family sequences, but definitely not as an athlete. Saikumar once again excels in a father character. Jishnu is ok as a planter while Siddharth hardly has any chemistry with Ann and his role. The threesome in the college, Suraj Venjaramoodu, and Sasi kalinga are all irritating, as usual. The rest of the cast including Mani, Augustine and P Sukumar plays to the demand of their roles.
On the whole, this `Rebecca Uthup Kizhakkemala' may find it hard to survive in the box Office . Family audiences are the only group who may get partially satisfied by this movie, which is definitely half baked, as of now.
Rating-5/10 |
