Malik movie review:Fahadh Faasil is fantastic in Amazon's overambitious but brilliant crime tale Malik.
Fahadh Faasil is fantastic in Amazon's overambitious but brilliant crime tale Malik.
Review of the film Malik: Fahadh Faasil's massive epic, bought by Amazon Prime, takes on more than it can handle, yet it leaves you with some essential concepts to ponder.
Malik begins with a flamboyant oner that brilliantly encapsulates the adventurous attitude of modern Malayalam film. However, it technically begins with a paranoid disclaimer that represents the nation's attitude. Malik, directed by Mahesh Narayanan and featuring his muse, Fahadh Faasil, treads a fine line in terms of theme. Amazon Prime Video deserves credit for picking it up.
Malik is a fittingly epic criminal drama, clocking in at over two and a half hours; its scope often outstrips its grip. It follows the lives of one man, Sulaiman Ali, the revolutionary leader of a seaside town in Kerala, who is apprehended by authorities at the airport in the film's opening minutes. Local leaders plot to kill him in captivity, fearing his growing influence in the region's politics. However, Ali Ikka, as he is affectionately known among his supporters, believes that no one in the community can hurt him.
What follows is an ambitious, if occasionally rough-around-the-edges crime tale that shamelessly draws from classics like The Godfather and Gangs of Wasseypur. The narrative by Mahesh Narayanan, on the other hand, lacks the raw poetry that we associate with Anurag Kashyap's flicks. Despite its episodic structure and large cast of characters, this is a sophisticated storey told simply.
The ever-trusty Joju George, for example, does not show until after the hour mark. He effectively portrays Ramadhir Singh in this storey, an IAS officer named Anwar Ali who has his pudgy fingers in every pie within touching distance, as well as those that are still baking. He and Ali Ikka have a long history together; in fact, Malik — another of his nickname — appears to be such a solitary human being that most of his interactions can be traced back to his youth. And Anwar is well aware that he cannot rely on outside assistance to gain access to his inner group.
Malik jumps into an extended flashback that lasts approximately an hour after a first act that effectively lays up the idea. We observe as a young Ali and his poor family relocate to a coastal village on the outskirts of a rubbish dump, where Ali's father will be buried, along with the rest of their community, by the iron grip of majoritarianism.
Narayanan frequently fails to keep a handle on the subject since the landscape is so vast. But it's ambition like this — both narrative and thematic — that makes the Malayalam New-Gen movement so interesting. For example, the full impact of a character's insult to Ali is felt an hour or so later, after we've slid into the past and seen their connection develop. Malik, like Mystic River, is primarily the storey of three pals who wash up on various coasts after hanging around as common goons as kids. Ali and Aboobacker (Dileesh Pothan) are both Muslims, but their friend David (Vinay Forrt) is a Christian. To make matters worse, Ali develops feelings for David's sister Rosaline (played by Nimisha Sajayan, who has done more good work in 2021 than most actors can manage in entire careers).
Narayanan is attempting, albeit in a plain manner, to make a great statement about communal politics. In many ways, Malik is a character study about one man's messiah-like climb to the top, and the near-Biblical betrayal that brings him down.
Fahadh Faasil is pure fire in the central role, which sounds like the understatement of the year, but there you have it. Working for the third time with Narayanan, who is better known as an editor, Fahadh Faasil is pure fire in the central role, which sounds like the understatement of the year, but there you have it. The actor, an undoubted national gem, discovers an emotional link between the more revolutionary-minded Ali of the 1980s and the more dismal, Vito Corleone-style persona of the ‘present day' segments, a man beset by great depression. Faasil's dominating onscreen aura, like that of Nawazuddin Siddiqui, pierces through his wiry body.
Despite its unoriginal origins, Malik is a continually unexpected experience, thanks to a beautiful music by Sushin Shyam that alters tones and genres in tandem with the picture. It's a storey about a foretold death set in a modern India that may pass for mediaeval. But even I wasn't expecting it to veer off into True Detective season two in the final act, when it gets preoccupied with real-estate scams and the highway mafia.
Malik is more of an illustration of the strongman notion than a dissection of it. The film may have made quite a stir if it hadn't been for those annoying subtitles. But, thankfully for all of us, I don't believe that the folks who cause this kind of difficulty enjoy reading. It's a political drama disguised as a mafia film. It's up to you to figure out the difference between the two, as it always is.
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