Big B- Stylish but predictable

Marikkar Films' Big B (Malayalam) scripted and directed by debutant Amal Neerad stars Mammootty in the lead. Big B is the story of Bilal (Mammootty) the oldest of the 4 orphans brought up by Mary Teacher (Nafisa Ali) who is a social activisit based in Fort Kochi. Mary Teacher is mercilessly killed on the eve of X'mas and this causes Bilal to return to his home town from a self imposed exile in Mumbai. Bilal along with his three "brothers"- Eddie (Manoj K Jayan), Murukan (Bala) and Bijo (Sumeet Naval) proceeds on to find out the culprits behind his mother's death. How he finds them and punishes them suitably is what the rest of the movie is all about. The story of Big B is as old as the hills and everyone from Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra in Bollywood to Joshi and Sasikumar in our own Malluwood have made films based on the "brothers' avenging parents' death" concept in the late 70's and early 80's. Amal Neerad knows for a fact that he has nothing new to offer as far as storyline is concerned and thus, he concenterates his efforts on the technical aspects of the movie to come up with a film that is slickly and stylishly shot. Sameer Thahir's camera, Ranjan Pramod's razor sharp cuts, Unni's crisp dialogues, Joseph Nellikkal's authentic production design and Alphonse's trendy music assist Amal in acheiving his objective. Mammootty takes active interest in his looks is something that everyone is aware of. But, with Big B, the megastar raises the bar for himself a few notches higher. With his chic outfits, trendy hair style and cool accessories, Mammootty makes a bold fashion statement in Big B, something one can expect the youth in Kerala to model themselves on for a long period to come. His understated performance as Bilal is different from what you have seen of the star actor in recent times. Manoj K Jayan is credible and Bala is dependable. Innocent evokes a few laughs in his 2 scene appearance. Nafisa Ali impresses in her cameo while Sumeet Naval cuts a sorry picture. The ladies- Lena, Mamta and Manasa- don't have much to do. However, Bala and Mamta look good together in the well picturised chart buster "Muthumanithooval pole". To cut a long story short, Big B scores high on the technical aspect, but thanks to its cliched and predictable storyline, will not linger in the minds of the viewers for a long time.