Comali Movie Review:Rating 3/5
Name Of The Movie Comali
Star Cast Jayam Ravi, Kajal Aggarwal, Yogi Babu, Samyuktha Hegde, K S Ravi Kumar
Movie Genre Comedy, Drama
Director Pradeep Ranganathan
Music Director Hiphop Tamizha
DOP Richard M. Nathan
Producer Ishari K. Ganesh
Production Company Vels Films International
Movie Runtime 2 hrs 23 mins
Censor Category U
Releasing on 15th August, 2019
The film begins with Ravi’s (Jayam Ravi) voice over depicting him as a small kid in the 80s to an adolescent boy in late 90s. Like anyone of his age, Ravi is an easy-going person and he falls for his classmate Nikhitha (Samuyuktha Hegde). When he is all set to propose to her with a rare family inherited idol, he meets with an accident and slips into a coma and does not wake up until 16 years have passed in 2016 at his school friend Mani’s (Yogi Babu) house. He sees Mani married to his sister (Anandhi). Everything around him has changed and Ravi who is caught in the past struggles to adjust to the modern world. He still idolizes his cherished school day memories and how has to come to terms with the present-day tech driven world.
Jayam Ravi gives his best and does a neat job although his VFX created teenage looks is not quite convincing. Together with Yogi Babu, he brings the roof down with their comic conversations. However, his finest comes when he earnestly advices today’s youth to come out of their fixation towards gadgets and machines and how human emotions are the same which is undeterred by technology.The moment he gifts her, Ravi is involved in a road accident that leaves him in a coma for 16 years. Ravi wakes up in the house of his best friend Mani (Yogi Babu), now married to his sister. He is unable to cope up with the changes around him, and finds it difficult to adjust to the needs of the 21st century.
He finds that human values and feelings have totally undergone a metamorphosis and people are not opening their heart, and are caught in social media whirl. The film throws a lot of pop-culture references and interpretations of life in a world dominated by the internet and social media. Through Ravi’s character, the director tells us how the ’80s and ’90s life and relationships were far more simple and uncomplicated.
Post interval, the story takes a U-turn, and focuses more on how Ravi manages to survive in today’s world. He starts his own YouTube channel named appropriately – Comali (Joker), and gets a job as a guard in a antique museum. A technically savvy girl (Kajal Aggarwal) helps him in his efforts to get back his missing family heirloom. However, at the end, the message is loud and clear that it is old-fashioned humanity – compassion, love, kindness and goodness that triumphs over a modern technology-driven world.Throw in a needlessly preachy climax to make the experience even more horrible. One of the biggest problems with the film is that it isn’t sure till the end whether it wants to be an adult comedy, a romantic drama or a drama on humanity. The story had the scope to be funnier but Comali holds itself back and that’s one of the reasons why it never works on the whole.
Jayam Ravi is decent in his role and he comfortably slips into the shoes of a school-going teenager as well as someone in his 30’s. But Comali really belongs to Yogi Babu, who carries the film on his shoulders from start to finish, and overshadows Ravi with his screen presence on so many occasions. HipHop Aadhi’s BGM has helped the film’s youthful genre, the ‘Paisa’ song looks grand with the good visuals and the climax ‘Nanba’ song ups the emotion factor. Technically, the film is backed up with good visuals, music and the climax might look little stretched but overall nothing much yo complain. Debutant Pradeep plays a cameo but has delivered a simple story with a big heart that will be liked by kids and family audiences.
The Chennai flood scenes are executed well and have a good connection to the story’s emotional climax. Samyuktha and Ananthi are convincing in their characters. Kajal’s characterisation and Shah Ra’s over the top performance in some scenes should have dealt with in a better way. KS Ravikumar, who appears in two looks, aptly fits the bill in the role of a dreaded politician.There is no much to say about the film in a review. It is that kind of a film which can be only watched and not the one which we can speak off. If you looking to check out a movie this weekend, then I would recommend Comali.
