16. GOLD (2022)

 

Language: Malayalam

Genre: Comedy

Alphonse Puthren, one of Mollywood's most admired directors, has always had a tendency to defy existing visual grammar and give the film an eccentric treatment. He was extremely successful with this style in his first two ventures, but he completely misses the mark with Gold.

Gold, like every other Alphonse Puthren film, has a wafer-thin plot that the director tries to enhance with his signature making style; however, things are a bit overdone this time, and the film leaves little impact. At times, the cinematic tools employed are so absurd that the necessity of certain scenes is called into question.

Gold has a sizable star cast, but the majority of the well-known names barely have any screen time. Even though there are many actors on the screen, the director has Prithviraj performing all the heavy lifting; however, Danger Joshy, the central protagonist, is once again given a monotonous and peripheral level characterization that does little to impress. Another unexpected aspect of Gold is how little the female characters in the film actually do, despite the fact that Nayanthara plays the female lead.

Alphonse's masterful use of nature as a tool for his story telling and some of the metaphors used in the film are two things that, despite all these flaws, worked for me. Additionally, certain comic strips and the catchy background score by Rajesh Murukeshan  keep away the movie from being a complete letdown. 

In short, this gold hardly has any lustre, and is a tiring affair to go through though it can boast certain technical prowess !!!

My Opinion: Mediocre