A still from ‘Nunakuzhi’
If ever there were an ‘exaggeration measurement device’ in a movie set, it would remain somewhere close to the maximum in many sequences in Jeethu Joseph’s Nunakuzhi. Almost everything, including the performances, is loud by two notches above the normal limit. Yet, much of it works well for the kind of film it is.
Nunakuzhi coasts along on a series of lies and mix-ups, one built on top of the previous. It all begins with a laptop that income tax officials seize during a raid at a company. Eby (Basil Joseph), who has reluctantly taken up the company’s mantle after his father’s death, had stored some personal videos on the laptop. The videos being seen by anyone else is unthinkable for Eby and his wife (Nikhila Vimal), making him set off on a mission to trace the IT officer (Siddique).
His paths cross with that of Resmitha (Grace Antony), who is going through a tough divorce proceeding. Meanwhile, the dead body of a dentist is lying in his clinic, with a woman accidentally locked up in one of the rooms. In yet another parallel track, an aspiring filmmaker (Althaf Salim) is at a script reading session with a pompous film star (Manoj K Jayan). As is expected, all these parallel tracks are bound to meet in one gigantic, confusing mix up.
Nunakuzhi (Malayalam)
Director: Jeethu Joseph
Cast: Basil Joseph, Grace Antony, Nikhila Vimal, Siddique, Baiju Santosh, Manoj K.Jayan, Saiju Kurup
Storyline: An income tax raid at a private firm leads to a series of mix-ups as the immature managing director goes on a mission to retrieve his seized laptop
Runtime: 125 minutes
Jeethu Joseph, who has not attempted humour in a while, goes for an all-out comedy in Nunakuzhi. KR Krishna Kumar, who had earlier scripted Jeethu’s 12th Manand Kooman, comes up with an evenly-paced screenplay, where the one-liners keep coming. A good part of it works due to the fast-paced editing that keeps switching between all the parallel scenarios and the comic timing of the performers, be it that of the youngsters or the veterans. For every joke that does not work, two others do. Even the few thriller elements in the story are laced with humour. Krishna Kumar must have had quite a task to seamlessly interlink the parallel scenarios without making it seem overdone.
Basil Joseph, as the man who just refuses to grow up and lands in pits of his own making, plays to his strengths, although the performance is a tad bit louder than his usual. An extended ‘poison mix-up’ scene with Grace Antony is a riot. Baiju Santosh plays the role of a police officer with a knack to tickle a funny bone. Although it is the kind of role we are so used to seeing him in, he manages to bring an element of freshness to the table with his trademark style of dialogue delivery. So does Siddique.
On the whole, Nunakuzhi is a briskly-paced fun ride, which proves that Jeethu Joseph is adept at more than just thrillers.
Nunakuzhi is currently running in theatres
