The movie is all about Akbar Ahmed, a young movie director, who is in the search for the scripts for his second movie. Akbar is already a talk in the industry about his different way of approach to the profession, and for his living away from tinsel town, simultaneously running a motel 'Casablanca' with his crew and friends. Akbar is in no hurry into his second venture, though he has plenty of offers. He chances upon to the life story of Malavika who was a rage in Malayalam Cinema in the 1980's. She had faded out from the screen after her marriage and divorce, with the superstar Ajaychandran and nobody knows what has happened to her. Akbar together with his friends wants to track her down for his next film and what happens as an aftermath forms the rest of the plot.
Banner: Medient International Limited Cast: Mohanlal, Geethu Mohandas, Nithya, Shweta Menon, Bharath Gopi, Manoj K Jayan, Sreenivasan Direction: K P Kumaran Music: John Altman
The movie which made headlines much before the release, primarily due to the international crew associated with the project and for the lavish budget that was being offered, lives up little to the expectations. The movie has Mohanlal as Albert Samson, the middle aged, and much ambitious and renowned architect. A Known master in constructing churches, his custom to climb up the completed castles to perform a dedication ceremony was always widely admired with surprises by the masses. Having reached the pinnacle of his profession, with a singular pursuit for fame and glory, he had been sacrificing his personal life and ethics. He lands up in further turmoil as younger generation under him, asks for professional freedom. Samson has already pulled down his mentor Abraham, who is now in his death bed with a last wish of seeing his son Alex, an assistant to Samson, as an independent builder. Samson has also crushed the peaceful life of his wife Alice, who is now left mentally unstable, following the untimely death of her twin children and parents. Into this hardened design of Samson's mind arrives a spirited girl, Hilda Varghese, who slowly but hypnotically prepares him to climb down the way of the ambitions, realizing the real tragic consequences.
The movie which is snailishly paced even in its one and half hour narratives largely remains as a play pictured on a film. Faltering largely to give visuals to the ibsenisque symbolisms, many of the celebrated imageries like ''Nine dolls'' and every ''curious stories'' attached with the discourses between Hilda and Samsun lay flat in the ill constructed script lines. At times the visuals move to left and right as if we view in a proscenium and the actors follow the light patches in circles and rectangles, not bettering anything than in a drama stage, with little eye for cinematic wizardry.
The story starts with the retired supreme court Justice Viswanatha Menon (Madhu) who lands at his ancestral home to have his vishu celebrations with his children (Siddhique, Vijayaraghavan, Sindhumenon) and grandchildren. The big joint family is all set to celebrate the weekend, assembling from many places, but the family’s weekend plans gets pale with Menon’s grandson ''Arun'' (Indrajith), a medico in Bangalore, is arrested for murder by the tough upright city police commissioner Antony Punnakkadan (Suresh Gopi). Menon hires one of his favorite student and fierce lawyer Ramesh Nambiar (Mammootty) to bail him out. Arun is safely taken care off from the court by Ramesh, but is killed in a few days.
Antony now arrests Devan (Mohanlal), a poor trader who was on an outing to Kochi. Devan's mother (Sukumari) and sister (Kavya Madhavan) pleads for help before Remesh. And here too the ace criminal lawyer finds points to get Devan out of the jail, unscathed. But here starts the tale of twists, which continues form reel to reel for the next two hours.
What works heavily for ‘Twenty: 20’ is that it lives up to its name-just like a 20:20 match, you can't predict what will happen in the next reels. Just when you fix this as the last twist in the tale, will arrive the next that will keep you in tight seats
The movie is set at ‘Mayabazaar', a market at mayanoor where scrap or parts of worn out vehicles are sold. Mammootty dons the role of Rameshan, a leading man of the bazaar and local do-gooder who buys old vehicles, dismantles them and sells the parts. Rameshan is the son of Akri Damodharan (Rajan P Dev) who migrated to Mayabazaar from Cherpulassery. Akri Damadharan is a typical character who occasionally steals money from his son and sets on for pilgrimages.
Rameshan, who values living for the downtrodden, is also the main organizer of lunch packets to the ailing patients of the nearby hospital. A lovable and fearless guy, he often has to deal with a rival gang lead by Bhadran (Kalabhavan Mani) who causes him problems, all based on his relation with Maya, who is madly after him.
The movie has Jayaram as Partha Sarathy, a social activist who is always living for the welfare of his fellow people of the Krishanapuram village. He has a group of young men like Suleiman and Poonkodi around him, who are with him for anything and everything. A staunch atheist after the untimely death of his father who was returning after a pilgrimage, Parthan is always in clashes with Phalgunan Thampy, his uncle who is also the corrupt president of the local panchayath.Parthan’s do-gooder image and his popular support irks Thampi who uses every chance to get rid of his nephew.
For a long time, the village temple has been closed due to court cases initiated by Parthan against his uncle, who was after the temple assets. Thampy's daughter Sathyabhama who returns from town with the first rank in LLM pretends to be in love with Parthan, but ditches him in court, thus helping her father to gain possession of temple properties. Parthan who stands agitated is sent to jail for a month's imprisonment for contempt of court.
When Parthan is in jail, Thampi with his crude friend, a local MLA creates religious riots to divide Parthan's followers, which kills many a people .When Parthan is released, he and his friends drink illicitly brewed arrack in a friend's marriage party and is confirmed dead. Though some of his friends die in the incident, Parthan mysteriously gets back to his life which is now filled with day mares and surrealistic imagery’s. Adding to this pandemonium is the arrival of Madhavan, who appears from nowhere and claims to be the one who studied with Pathan years ago. Madhavan doesn't go back but keep a close watch of Parthan guiding him to wisdom and helping him in every situation .The movie goes on to tell how Parthan gets cleared of all the problems of his life and how he manages it is the rest of the movie.
Banner: Varnachitra Big Screen, Capitol Theatre
