Vikramadithyan movie review: A perfect flick to spend your money on

Movie: Vikramadithyan
Cast: Dulquer Salmaan, Unni Mukundan, Namitha Pramod, Lena, Anoop Menon, Nivin Pauly
Director: Lal Jose
Rating: Three stars

Kochi: Love-hate relationships are intense. In Vikramadithyan, two schoolboys carry their rivalry into adulthood, and each gets a chance to look the other in the eye and say, “I wouldn’t be who I am if you weren’t there as my enemy”. They also have a bloody fight over the same girl, their childhood classmate.

The writer is obsessed with police uniforms. A policewoman (Lena) desires to marry anyone who wears one. A thief overhears her, wears one, and marries her. By the time her policeman lover (Anoop Menon) gets his mother’s permission, it is too late. His son, Vikram, and her son, Adithyan (Dulquer Salmaan) too dream of someday officially donning the uniform. The girl in their lives promises to marry the latter if he ever does so.

The characters are grey. A cop who thinks lowly of breakers of the law is involved in an underhand deal. And the son of a thief who hangs around with shady friends honestly desires to be a defender of the law. Prejudice and unfounded animosity is a crime. Shamefully, here, the guilty one is a high-ranking police officer who has determined that nothing good can ever come of a man with the traits of his thieving father.

Despite being on the side of the baddies, Dulquer Salmaan sticks for the most part to his bankable charming-lover-boy-who-can-pack-a-socking-punch star image. Fleetingly, though, he gives enough indication of his potential as an actor. Anoop Menon portrays something that’s a little different from his ‘super-cool’ mannerisms: a crestfallen look. The image of Lena’s sad, broken heart is reflected in her face.

A cop flashes his torch in what clearly looks to the eye like an exterior shot in the middle of a hot, sunny noon, surprisingly, on what is otherwise overall a pleasant canvas with a nice play of light and shade and no glaring errors. The scene in question, incidentally, features a bunch of kids blowing smoke; not the ideal thing to be doing especially at that tender age.

Lal Jose’s nonlinear romantic love triangle may be somewhat idealistic in nature. However, it’s a compelling entertainer that extols the virtues of education, work, perseverance, and the struggle for goodness; and inspires one to compete with nothing but the highest order.