First Take: Mohanlal's Monster act is mindboggling & moronic

In director Vysakh’s Monster, there is something to be said about a trueblue Malayali actor like Mohanlal who goes around in a turban pretending to be a Sardarji. The performance, if we may call it that, is so parodic it is an insult to the entire Sikh community. Would Mohanlal like it if the Malayalis were similarly parodied?

In one-half of this monstrous misfire, Mohanlal is Lucky Singh, an inexcusably obnoxious Sardarji who piles on the female cab driver Bhamini (Honey Rose) asking her the most inappropriate questions, barging into her first marriage anniversary making a nuisance of himself everywhere.

If this is not awful enough, the second-half does a complete somersault and we are left looking at a film and protagonist with a split personality. The two halves of the film are like two different films joined together at the hip by a very messy surgery. Suffice it to say that the screenplay is a howl and a hoot.

Whoever thought they could get away with this must have been smoking something very strange and dangerous. The film is disgracefully askew in its political incorrectness oscillating from toxic masculinity to even worse, with far-fetched, completely uncalled-for delusional insights into lesbianism.

Did you know that Haryana has a lesbian marriage law? This is one of the brainbashing revelations in Monster. This is a film that tries so hard to entertain, it cracks its skull and breaks its backbone in the process.

Why Mohanlal Sir why? I have always admired his work. The bedrock of believability that he brings to his characters, and the understated performances have been with us for more than forty years, leaving his fans, indebted. So to paraphrase ABBA, thank you for the movies, thanks for all the joy they’ve been bringing, who could live without them, I ask in all honesty?

And in all honesty, what on earth made Mohanlal do a Rajinikanth in his previous film Aaraattu? Every frame is dedicated to glorifying Mohanlal’s august presence. Every shot is targeted at telling the world what a great soul he is. As if we need to be reminded of his greatness!

This kind of self-glorification suits Rajnikanth, not Mohanlal. We come to Mohanlal on every release with great expectations. What do we see in Aaraattu? A three hours’ long love letter to Mohanlal’s sweet self. There are more than forty characters in this film. I am sorry I saw only Mohanlal in every frame. And if not Mohanlal , then characters talking about him with that mix of awe and veneration that went of style with N T Rama Rao’s generation.

Today’s audience in every part of India looks for relatable heroes, vulnerable , even weak yet determined, like Thomas Tovino in Minnal Murali or earlier, Prithviraj in Mumbai Police , or Jayasurya in Sunny.

Let me tell you of a private conversation I had with Amitabh Bachchan, undoubtedly the biggest superstar this country has produced. Once when I addressed him as ‘Sirji’ he snapped at me, ‘Cut out that Sir business. The era of hero-worship is long over. Heroes now are one of the people, thanks to social media and a general erosion of values. The qualities that made Lata Mangeshkar, Dilip Kumar and Shivaji Ganesan such venerated figures are neither obtainable, nor accessible or acceptable.”

Mr Bachchan’s words came back to me as I watched Mohanlal with a mix of horror and hilarity in Aaraattu, beating up a dozen goons, flirting with everything in a saree(that is, whenever the women are allowed visibility in this stag party). Playing the messianic farmland-retriever of the downtrodden Mohanlal wants us to believe that he is having fun with the hero-giri, when in fact the entire visual and audio design of the project is insanely idolatry, supremely self-obsessed.

The hero is constantly playing verbal and physical tricks of one-upmanship on his opponents, including a Godman who is the landgrabbers’ ally and a filthy-rich zamindar who wants to own every piece of land in the village. Mohanlal is shown to be pretending to one of the capitalist pigs. But he is a farmer at heart.

Awwwwww! So sweet! Just one problem. This Rajinikanth-MGR-T Rama Rao brand of celluloid heroism is as obsolete as pagers and VCRs. No one buys into this brand of self-promotion unless the plot cleverly justifies, if not rationalizes the lionizing tricks. The screenplay of Aaraattu is like a primer for potboilers. It ticks all the boxes but forgets to hold the boxes steady in their place.

Monster and Aaraattu are the worst films of Mohanlal’s career. Both are shamefully shoddy and worshipful. At a time when Mohanlal’s son Pranav has shown us in Hridayam that he is more than a chip off the block, the father can’t afford to be so tackily self-indulgent.

He is, after all, Mohanlal.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.

Read all the Latest News, Trending News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.