Doing good homework before actual test will always prove advantageous not only to the children at school, but also to any film director . This must be the moral for any film maker after seeing 'Aswaroodan' - a film with no proper scripts, no emotional buildups and not much to write about. One really wonder how a two time national award winning director can churn out such rubbish overdone movies.
The script (if any) written by Jayaraaj's brother Mahesh and Sajiv, is the prime culprit and the rest is the unwise casting that make viewers hard to digest the stated events. The story is a mixture of some real life incidents unnaturally blended with masala elements. And More over, the references to epics to support the protagonists, which has became a fashion these days also add to the whole pandemonium.
The film tells the story of Veerabhadran (Suresh Gopi) who is a local Chieftain, in an adivasi stronghold. He is a straight forward leader, who provides help to anyone who approaches him first, without caring for whether the supplicant is right or wrong. The villagers believe in him and his way of justice, just like they had in his father Viswanathan (Captain Raju), who was treacherously killed en route his ways of enforcement of local justice Manickan played by Saikumar joins Veerabhadran only to sell bad times for the protagonist. By using his cunningness he spells trouble for him at all levels. And the rest of the film moves around the identification of his real enemy by the chieftain and the demolishing of the evil, as the routine package.
Padmapriya makes a lacklustre performance as a Brahmin girl Seeta Lakshmi who organizes the adivasis to fight for their rights. she very soon becomes the enemy of Manickan as she tries to stop him from land-grabbing activities. Manickan who at any cost, intends to grab anything that catches his fancy soon falls for Seetha Lakshmi and the rest is very predictable as she walks into the protective arm of Veerabhadran.
The film don't holds you for a minute as you wonder through the good camera outings and frames of Venugopal and the artwork of Nemom Pushparaaj which are the only saving grace of the film. Jayaraj, who tries to sell the emotions attached to Muthanga incident in Wayanad, in which 13 adivasis were killed, couldn't regenerate any percent of emotional content attached to real news clips of the happenings.
Suresh Gopi has nothing to do, apart to act as his usual stereotypes. Once again a case of wrong role selections, it is high time he check his future ventures, before falling prey to another one like this or his earlier 'Lanka'. Padmapriya became a disaster , with not even presenting better lip syncs to her character. Sai Kumar as usual excels in his negative outfits, the only other silver lining in the film. Jassie Gift was able to make some different hummable music but once again, for a wrong movie.
The prestigious Suresh productions, with all their experience of classic hits in the south, could have avoided something like this to make a landing in Malluwood. The film stretching to less than 100 minutes will never bring the producer benefits, either as profits or as good name. All together, this is a movie just to kill time, rather in its most weird sense.
