Law And Order not only delivers an outdated and amateurish cop drama, but also manages to drag Mammootty’s iconic Black character into the mess, complains Sreeju Sudhakaran.
IMAGE: Prakash Varma in Law And Order.
Key Points
- Mammootty’s cameo in Law And Order is his worst guest appearance, tarnishing his iconic character Shanmugham from Black.
- The film, directed by Ranjith and scripted by B Unnikrishnan, has an outdated plot, amateurish filmmaking and reliance on lazy tropes.
- The narrative revolves around DYSP Balagopal’s efforts to curb drug menace in Kochi, assisted by five young officers.
When Mammootty made a cameo in this year’s wrestling drama, Chatha Pacha, fans panned it as one of the superstar’s weakest guest appearances, calling him a complete misfit for the role.
Well, Mammootty clearly heard you all, went ‘enna ithu pidhicho…’, and delivered an even worse cameo in Ranjith’s new film, Law And Order.
I do not even need to dig deep into Mammukka’s filmography to confidently declare this his worst guest appearance ever. Mammootty’s presence is not just completely gratuitous; it ruins one of his fan-favourite characters, Shanmugham from Black (2005).
Since Black was also directed by Ranjith, both actor and director can equally share the blame for tarnishing a film with a solid fanbase.
A New Low For Ranjith
Law And Order sets itself up as a Black spinoff right from the opening credits. So, when Shanmugham drops in during the climax to offer the protagonists an easy way out of their mess, you cannot really complain about not being warned.
Oh, did I say ‘easy way out’? I meant ‘a lazy way out’.
Law And Order does not just ruin a cult classic; it is a thoroughly outdated and amateurish film.
I will not even call it a couple of decades late. A product this ludicrously shot should never have seen the light of day in any era.
It is genuinely hard to believe it carries the credit of a veteran like Ranjith, considering the filmmaking is juvenile even for a complete cinematic novice.
Criminally Bad Gangster Drama
Udaykrishna has penned the script of Law And Order. Given the screenwriter’s recent bland outings, I should not have expected anything else. Yet, even by my meagre expectations, Law And Order showcases Unnikrishnan at his absolute worst. He mercilessly recycles lazy tropes and over-familiar gangster scenarios and serves them with bland revenge drama and atrocious dialogues.
Not a single scene stands out, unless you are measuring them by how bad they are. In that case, there is fierce competition for the worst. And just so that the screenplay can sound, as Indrajith Sukumaran says in Amar Akbar Anthony, ‘hi-tech… hi-tech’, they throw in terms like ‘Discord’ and ‘rave party’, and then believe that the audience is not as ‘hi-tech’ as them, so go on to explain what exactly they are.
Still interested in the plot?
Much like Black, Law And Order is set in Kochi and revolves around gangs and drug wars. DYSP Balagopal (Prakash Varma) is an honest officer determined to curb the city’s drug menace. In pursuit of this noble duty, Balagopal predictably suffers a major family crisis.
Five young officers, also best friends from their police training camp days, assist him in taking down the drug nexus. They are played by newcomers Ritudev Ayyappan, Don Michael, Shanod Ebrahim, Sajal Sudharshan, and Nijad Babu.
I would mention their character names, but it is a thoroughly futile exercise. They are entirely interchangeable, lacking any distinct personalities or characteristics.
Okay, I am not telling the whole truth. One of them gets the classic poor family backstory, complete with a sister’s impending wedding responsibilities and a last-minute love interest. You know exactly what Udaykrishna’s highly dated screenplay is going to do to him.
Outdated, Amateurish Writing And Execution
The primary villains are Prahlad Parekh (Shersha Sherief), a Gujarati-born sociopathic crime lord, and his younger brother (Rinosh George). They come with supposedly terrifying street names.
Get ready to shiver: Pacha and Chottu.
Fine, you messed up their gangster aliases. But you could at least give them memorable setups to establish them as formidable threats. Instead, they act like overgrown brats, displaying zero acumen to justify their reputation as city terrors.
If the main villains are thoroughly unmemorable, the movie throws in extra baddies purely for your amusement. We have Devan playing Methar, a smuggler sporting a highly questionable beard, with the film itself highly confused about whether he is Jewish or Muslim, and whose mere appearance elicits giggles.
Then there is director V K Prakash effortlessly delivering the worst performance of the movie, which is saying a lot, as Joshua, a professor who cooks meth. So can I now assume Udaykrishna had finally binged all seasons of Breaking Bad?
The female characters exist solely to blend into the scenery, get sexualised, or be brutally battered by the villains.
Abhirami plays Balagopal’s ailing wife Veni, a former lawyer. She gets to drop some random legal points right before the climax, just before the script politely asks her to leave so the men can take over the scene.
You cannot blame the actors for their poor showing. Prakash Varma, the standout surprise of Thudarum, in his first positive role (again as a cop) proves he is strictly a director’s actor. For when the direction is this bad, he visibly struggles with basic dialogue delivery.
To make matters worse, he is forced into awkward, slow-motion hero poses without a single reasonable plot development to back them up.
A Woeful Waste Of Mammootty
But then as I said before, you cannot blame the actors for looking totally ordinary when everything else is comparably worse.
The editing, the cinematography, and the background score are barely passable. But that is entirely expected when the captain of the ship is clueless about where he is steering.
Instead, he drops Mammootty into the final act to salvage the sinking ship. There is no doubt Mammootty’s sheer presence elevates any scene, but he is not a magician. He cannot magically turn rubble into rubies. And you are certainly not helping his case by blasting an absurd remix of Ambalakkara Thechikavilu Pooram as his background score.
I would be lying again if I said I did not have any fun with the movie. One specific department messed up just as badly as the rest but kept me thoroughly entertained: the subtitles.
Not only were they packed with grammatical and spelling errors, but they consistently got the dialogues wrong. Payyanur becomes Kanhangad in text. ‘Koodutal angu olathalle…’ is bizarrely translated to ‘Don’t drag your mother into this!’ (?)
But my absolute favourite was when the subtitles butchered Prakash Varma’s sole mass dialogue. When he smarmly declared, ‘Don’t f*** with Kerala Police,’ the subtitles translated it to, ‘What the f*** is Kerala Police?’
Such fun!
PS: Dear Ranjith and B Unnikrishnan, just for your information, Hindi is NOT India’s national language, regardless of what you make your characters randomly proclaim.
It is always great to learn a new language, Hindi included. But firmly claiming that learning Hindi is ‘important’ for every Indian is just wrong on multiple levels.
I do not know who you were trying to please here. But your latest collaboration is highly guaranteed to displease the Kerala police, the criminals, Mammootty fans, and literally any self-respecting Malayali out there.
Law And Order Review Rediff Rating:
