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'Lanka' Disappoints

By P. Sreekumaran
Film critic, ApunKaChoice.Com

It was billed as Malayalam cinema's first erotic thriller. But in the end ‘Lanka’ turned out to be a whimper. It is already limping at the box office. Hard luck for Suresh Gopi, who attempted a bold image makeover in the film.

Director A K Sajan must share the blame for this dismal denouement. The director seems to have lost his way right from the beginning. It was supposed to be a movie with a message. But the message is anything but clear. If the idea was to titillate the audience with a bare and dare act on the part of the heroine, again the movie falls flat on its face. Even the so-called erotic scenes leave the audience cold.

‘Lanka’

also has nothing to boast of by the way of narration either. The story is a disaster. The script is even weaker. The editing leaves much to be desired.

Poor Suresh Gopi! His effort to strike out a new path has gone awry. It is a far cry from the macho image associated with Gopi. There is hardly any scope for heroism or any daring-do. And, to add insult to injury, in the second half, the director literally confines him to bed, incapacitated in an attack by the LTTE guerillas.

The only saving grace of the film is the picturesque locales of Sri Lanka. If only the story had done justice to the picture postcard beauty of the locales, the final product would have been better. Alas, that was not to be.

Sravan (Suresh Gopi) is a captain in Indian Navy fighting in Sri Lanka against the Tamil guerillas. He manages to kill hundreds of guerillas in the operations launched by the Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF).

Post-operations, he decides to live in Lanka. Now he is a womaniser who goes about his task with gusto. He is stinkingly rich who owns a number of palatial bungalows. Sravan has a psychic problem too. He had been abandoned by his actress mother. Then came another blow when his wife ran away with her lover.

Sravan's daring operations against the Tamil guerillas incur the wrath of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE). They are out to bump him off.

Into his life enters Lanka (Mamta Mohandas) who is a gypsy girl. Sravan rapes her but ends up marrying her unaware of the fact that she is from the LTTE stronghold out to seek revenge on behalf of the Tamils.

She almost succeeds in her plans. But Sravan survives the murderous attack on him. But he is totally incapacitated and confined to bed. Lanka pretends to nurse him back to health. But her actual aim is to escape with all his wealth.

Suresh Gopi looks out of sorts and out of depth in the lead role. Most of the times he wears a confused look and seems unsure of himself.

Comparatively, newcomer Mamta Mohandas has a bigger footage than the hero. In a way the story revolves more around her than Suresh Gopi. She tries to impress with a lot of bare and dare acts with poor results. In the hands of a better director, she would have done a better job. Even her makeup looked gaudily horrible.

Can be avoided unless you are a diehard Suresh Gopi fan.

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