Chocolate leaves a bad taste!

Anantha Vision's "Chocolate" (Malayalam) directed by Shafi and written by debutant duo Sachi- Sethu is the consequence of the astounding success of recent campus flicks like "Classmates" and "Note Book". The predecessors were successful because they had novel concepts, freshness in presentation and well drafted scripts filmed by competent directors. These are precisely the things that "Chocolate" lacks in. The premise is definitely interesting- that of a male student- Syam (Prithiviraaj, displaying ample heroism) getting enrolled for a Post Graduation Course in a leading womens' college in the city. The rogue of the guy (7 dismissals and 2 police cases are his track record) is definitely unwelcome for the awesome threesome girl gang- Ann Mathew (Roma- impeccable dress sense and alluring screen presence), Nandana (Samvrutha Sunil, totally out of place) and Susan (Remya Nambeesan, simply Not Applicable). How the gang of girls try their best to chuck Syam out of the college and how he survives against all odds only to fall in love with Ann is what the rest of the film is all about. Of course, there are side tracks in the story- the war between the Principal and the PTA Association, a local fashion designer Ranjith's (Jayasuriya, repeating himself for the umpteenth time) infactuation for Nandana, Syam's night outs with his friends (Salim Kumar, playing one of the friends, gets the maximum support from the audience for his witty one- liners, most of them laced with double innuendos), Nandana's father suspecting her of having an affair with Syam, Preetha, another student, falling for Syam and how her one way love story progresses etc. The problem with Chocolate is that it never really tries to concenterate on what needs to be said. The script writers and the director, it seems, have concenterated more on adding punch liners here and there, instead of establishing the characters properly and trying to connect each of the characters leading the story to a logical conclusion. Songs and fight sequences have been forcefully dumped into the narrative and consequently, they look extremely out of place. Not much thought seems to have gone into the casting either. Salim Kumar is too old to play Prithviraaj's friend, Samvrutha and Remya do not fit into the roles of ultra modern college going girls, Rajan P Dev's loud character just adds to the irritation of the audience. The less said about the second half of the film, the better. Technically too, the film does not stand out. Azhagappan's camera work is of pedestrian quality. Is this the same cinematographer who gave us the wonderful frames in the recently released "Ore Kadal"? The editor seems to have been on vacation. The art department and the sound department have not really bothered to make much contribution to the movie. The script is weak and the director appears clueless in the second half as to where to take this story. The weakest link in this film is its music score- Vayalar Sharath and Alex Paul- the team who gave us the wonderful album "Classmates" last year- hit an abysmal low with this album. The songs are pain to one's ears and the background score has very comfortably been lifted from Classmates. Except for Prithviraaj and Roma's presence and performances, there is nothing sweet about Chocolate. Unfortunately, the movie is on its way to become a blockbuster. I can only sympathise with the degradation of the appreciation level of the Malayalee audience.