4th Amritha Film Awards: A lacklustre affair!

Malayalam cinema has also started having its own share of award nights. Earlier it was only the Film Critics Awards and the State Film Awards. Now, we have Asianet Film Awards, Mathrubhoomi Film Awards, Vanitha Film Awards and finally, Amritha Film Awards. Invariably, the same set of actors and technicians get honored at all of these and by the time the last awards are distributed, both the audience and the award winners get bored of the routine! This is precisely what happened with the 4th Amritha Film Awards. Add to it the fact that the function had to be postponed by a week due to rains!

All this took away the brightness of the whole affair with hardly a handful of stars attending the do. Thus, you had the awards being distributed by a couple of ministers and folks holding executive positions with the many sponsors of the award night. Jagadeesh was the MC for the day and he did a strictly OK job. Suraj Venjarammodu's jokes evoked yawns instead of guffaws. Muktha (never been on work) and Rambha (completely out of work) were the dancers chosen to entertain the crowd. Muktha struggled while Rambha succeeded fairly. Naresh Iyer, Vineeth Srinivasan and Shwetha Mohan did a good job with their songs. Shwetha's melange of award winning songs from Vinodayathra, Ore Kadal and Nivedhyam deserve special mention.

The only big star who made it to the do was Mammootty and all through he carried an expression that said- "What am I doing here?" The person who had the last laugh would have been Shyamaprasad with Ore Kadal winning awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Music Director and Best Playback Singer (Female). Amritha Awards more than compensated for the raw deal that was meted out to Ore Kadal at the State Film Awards.

The channel also came up with a new concept of honoring its celebrity MC- Jagadeesh was honored with a Flexi- Actor award. Dont know what it really meant. However, so much for another completely out of work actor and a model for other award nights to follow if they want to rope in a celebrity MC!

Altogether, a totally lack lustre affair!