A mallu movie in a theater after a looong time. We were five of us and we paid a total of Rs.200 for the tickets and no parking hassles. I would have paid the same amount for a single ticket in Bangalore! Anyway, back to the movie.
Paleri Manikyam is a period thriller which goes back to the time of the first communist government being installed in Kerala. Since it is a detective "whodunit" kinda thing, I obviously can't delve too deep into the actual story, but it is to do with the rape and murder of a young lady and then the elaborate cover up. The story is well taken forth in the first half with very limited yet accurate depiction of the 1950s. The second half starts well, but then tapers down a bit and ends as a whimper. Mammotty in his many roles has done a good job, while his supposedly platonic criminal analyst friend is absolutely useless. She neither serves as good eye-candy, nor is she playing any part in the story other than smoking and questioning. The rest of the characters have too small a role to be really impacting, but the convenience with which some of them volunteer information is unexplained. Above all this is the very reason as to why the protagonist starts on this investigative journey some five decades after the incident occurred. A good detective movie must drop enough hints for the viewer to play detective and solve the mystery and not just drop an obvious clue at the end or a totally new character introduced to close the mystery loop.
All in all, Paleri Manikyam is a good attempt at a thriller, but fails in certain areas which tends to slow the movie down and hence can't keep the audience glued down and wits challenged. I give it a 6.5/10.
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