Mikhael Movie Review

Story: A school kid commits suicide after a humiliating incident at school. All hell breaks loose as his brute businessman dad gets obsessed with finishing off all responsible for the same.

Review: There’s a ‘The Great Father’ like flavour sprinkled all over Mikhael - both of which are directed by Haneef Adeni. The trigger of all things that make up the story is school kids. The non-linear narration, the family member who decides to handle out justice thanks to an unhelpful and ineffective law and order system and more, though Nivin Pauly’s Micheal John isn’t George Ninan. The film, right from the outset, is conscious that it is supposed to give Nivin Pauly that Don’t-mess-with-me hero appeal at every turn and tries to be a launch vehicle for his likeable action hero status in Malayalam.

Gangster-businessman George (Siddique)’s son Gerard (Parava fame Amal) challenges one of his schoolmates, a girl, for a karate spar. Things don’t go as planned and the issue spirals beyond their control and the walls of the schools, children’s egos and parents’ worries.

Just as in Adeni’s previous film, swanky cars, hoodie-wearing characters, suave get-ups, slow-motion sequences, sunglasses, costly watches and cocktail rings are what fill the scenes one after the other. There is enough for the ardent fans of Nivin Pauly and other actors to cheer. Punch lines after punch lines are lined up in each of the scenes. Siddique looks his menacing best as George. The final fight sequence, though a bit long and senseless while the viewers get to watch it, probably evoke some thrill as a few interesting details about it get revealed towards the climax.

At the same time, by the first half itself, the reasons for the events yet to unfold are almost clear and those waiting to be revealed post intermission hardly evoke any thrill as they arrive. The long second half is all about waiting to see what all the hero gets to do to the villains, to punish them.

Nivin Pauly has earnestly tried to fit into the role of a roundhouse kicking, surgical-knife-wielding Dr Micheal John, but he hardly looks the part, be it as the MBBS student Micheal or the eventual hero that he becomes. The fight sequences seem forced, the delivery of the lines artificial and his style of executing justice, sans any thrill. One of the scenes in which he explains to his ‘victim’ how he would die, is quite similar to another in 22 Female Kottayam. Unni Mukundan looks good, but the makers have tried to use his looks even to cover up the pointlessness of certain scenes, for instance the one in which he emerges from someone else’s bathroom, in his boxers. A handful of his supposedly punch-filled lines are also bland. There is also scant regard for logic in many scenes.