Season of Boredom!

Pseudo intellectualism is so deeply ingrained in the average Malayalee psyche that our film makers these days create mediocre stuff (or even worse than that) and go singing around as if these are the best films anybody could make! We saw that happening with T V Chandran's lazily made "Vilaapangalkkappuram" and now it is the turn of Syamaprasad with the supposedly bold, youthful and different "Hruthu".

Honestly, I have always been a fan of Syamaprasad ever since his DD days- I thought his Uyirthezhunelppu and Maranam Durbalam are the best to have come out on Indian television. Though he messed up with his debut feature film "Kallu Kondoru Pennu", he more than made it up with "Agni Saakshi", "Akale" and the brilliant "Ore Kadal". Unfortunately, Hruthu scores few notches lower than even "Kallu Kondoru Pennu" and a fair share of the blame should go to the scriptwriter Joshua Newton!

Newton's distorted view of today's youth and the IT industry is where the problem is. One of his lead characters is gay and the scriptwriter finds it disturbing to disclose it. Even more worrisome is the way he slots the character as a villain- It is as if he is trying to proclaim that a person with a different sexual orientation cannot be normal! And the biggest blooper of it all is that the character's sexual orientation has nothing to do with the plot on hand!

He goes all wrong with the characterization of pretty much everyone- Varsha (an undeniably hot Rima Kallingal) is a compulsive flirt and hence has to join "gay" Sunny (Asif Ali, loud!) as an antagonist in the eyes of the pure and virtuous Sharath (Nishan, wooden). Jaya Menon who plays Zarina, the head of the IT company that the three friends work for, needs to tone down. She is loud, clumsy and irritatingly over the top. The only actor who displays some flair for the art is director MG Sasi who plays Sharath's older brother- the revolutionary Hari.

Rahul Raj's songs are mediocre- "Koo Koo Theevandi" is easily the pick of the lot. Editing is lazy but camerawork is impressive. Cuckoo Parameswaran scores with the costumes yet again- they are so trendy, so today and wearable! Hruthu also feels painfully long even at under 120 minutes- some amount of trimming might help but I would still rate this one as Syamaprasad's worst till date!