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2h
Kannur Savitha Film City #AyyappanumKoshiyum
Day 1 ~ ₹2.10 Lakhs [71%]
Day 2 ~ ₹2.28 Lakhs [77%] Total = ₹4.38 Lakhs

#VaraneAvashyamundu
Day 1 ~ ₹1.21 Lakhs [70%]
Day 2 ~ ₹1.50 Lakhs [86%] Total = ₹2.72 Lakhs

 

Nilambur Fairyland Boxoffice Update :

#AyyappanumKoshiyum - 1.57 Lakh - 67 % (4 Shows) Total 2 Days Gross - 2.94 Lakh

#VaraneAvashyamundu - 0.80 Lakh - 62 % (4 Shows) Total 2 Days Gross - 1.34 Lakh

 

Thrissur Ragam Noon Show HF

 

Perinthalmanna Vismaya Extra 2 Screens Added For Noon Show Extra Screen Added For 1st Show

 

A near-perfect entertainer, devoid of the regular filmy gimmicks

Ayyappanum Koshiyum is dialogue-driven narrative and its cast have given a stand-out performance
A stray incident snowballing into a feud and nearly three hours of riveting reel time devoid of any customary gimmicks.

Sachy’s Ayyappanum Koshiyum is basically an extended ego match built on crude reality, yet very mainstream and compelling.

It is a dialogue-driven narrative, as much verbal as visual, but without over-punctuation or the burden of forced hilarity. The film also comes with a highly textured screenplay, creating an immaculate balance between lightness and intensity.

Ayyappanum Koshiyum has Biju Menon and Prithviraj playing its sparring heroes, two flawed men who extract an instant nod of approval from the audience.

They meet on a forest road, one fighting tipsiness inside a car and the other on duty checking vehicles in Attappady, an alcohol-free zone. Koshy, a 38-year-old retired havildar, is taken into custody with his stock of alcohol. He brags about his ex-military status, challenges the policemen and runs amok till Ayyappan intervenes. He is slapped, dragged to the police station and unceremoniously dispatched to jail.

USP of the film
The day Koshy comes out of the prison the war is declared and he finds a formidable adversary in SI Ayyappan Nair, who has only a couple of years left for retirement. The USP of the film is the way Sachy builds an engaging and nearly perfect entertainer, right from the lightweight conflict in the beginning. It is not all about the nauseous flare-up of machismo as the script brings in awkward home truths and urgent arguments. Though both men come with shades of grey, the film also raises some pertinent questions about privilege and fairness.

Dialogues
It touches upon toxic sense of entitlement and modes of resilience, it talks about people who revolt when pushed back to their limits.

Though the dialogues mostly set the pace of the film, they are more or less organic and commonplace, not designer one-liners penned for a special purpose.

Biju Menon brings in a kind of freshness to the ‘audacious underdog’ and ‘beast-unleashed’ themes while Prithviraj is equally impressive as the boozing, carefree brat.

Neat performance
Ranjith plays his father Kurian, a man who exudes arrogance from every cell of his body, an epitome of disgusting patriarchal pride, something he always celebrated in his movies as a director and scenarist.

Gowri Nanda gives a neat performance as the Adivasi wife and all the supporting cast leave an impression.

The music is another vital aspect, which adds to the tempo of the film and cinematography by Sudeep Elamon maintains the mood without any disconcerting fluctuations.

And together they make Ayyappanum Koshiyum a gripping affair, rugged and confident.

Navamy Sudhish

 

Ayyappanum Koshiyum review: Rooted politics fountainhead this duel

Last time Sachy came up with a superb face-off that lightly pushes it’s small scale canvas to a huge sophisticated mainstream canvas. This time around, Sachy who’s on double-duty as a writer and director, pushes the envelope even more wider. Ayyappanum Koshiyum (AK) is big canvas filmmaking at its best. It’s in short an epic of propositions. The plot is as wafer-thin as his previous film Driving License. If DL incepted around a procedural crisis, AK forms it’s crux from a legal invasion. If the combat in DL was centered around self-respect and dignity, AK jerks from power-dominance – which is interesting because the criticism that was unfavourable to DL came from the ones who questioned it’s insensitive grammar that fiddles a serious issue of power-abuse. Ayyapanum Koshiyum instead is foundationhead by it’s rooted politics, both personal and socio-cultural.

Firstly, look at the beauty of it’s landscape. From the imagery of Attapadi’s windmills to its cultural lexicon including Kummattikali the folk artform and many titbits that throws into delineating lifestyle of the tribes occupying this place. There are only a very few mainstream writers who are fond of displaying the cultural aesthetics of Kerala onto the screen. Sachy is someone who does this quite often, previously in Anarkali he treated Lakshadweep as a character (even though as much constrained within the borders of mainstream cinema). This is a healthy change to the Malayalam mainstream that was drastically put-off in the early 2000’s.

Now there is a Lijo Jose Pellissery and Dileesh Pothan who roots films with nativity. What Sachy is doing is largely laudable considering the state of havoc Malayalam Cinema was in, a few years back. Along with rooting it’s picturesque landscape Sachy goes further in chopping out it’s social politics. We have seen this flourishing change in films like Unda. The undercurrent of AK is ridden by dalit politics and power suppression. Ayyappan Nair (Biju Menon) has his Nair backstory and his wife (Gowri Nandha in a very enticing debut performance) is the dalit representative.

Thirdly and most predominantly, the personal politics that toys the rivalry between Koshi Kurien (Prithviraj Sukumaran) and Ayyappan Nair. The writing is god-level here that elevates every passing scene with small yet interesting conflicts. If Driving License was intimate and ‘verbal’, Ayyappanum Koshiyum is physical and external. If the former has polished sophistication, the latter has flare of native raw action and gritty local resonance. Unlike DL which had a first 30-40 minutes of character establishment, AK starts from the word go and other potential character’s are only introduced in the passing proceedings. But the pace of conflict between two of our central protagonists are not bleaked. The momentum keeps building each minute.

If the first half triggers our gravitas slowly, the second half goes rampage with it. Just see how brilliant the construction of the screenplay is, look how the film opens after it’s interval block. Sachy keeps the momentum going reckless, but he also designs the pausing interludes with ampere heat that will fire the duel. Ayyappanum Koshiyum is a smartly designed formula as well. At Least it tosses on many contemporary trends. The most obvious is Dileesh Pothan’s duology, Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum and Maheshinte Prathikaram. One couldn’t deny the resemblance of the former’s visual design – especially in the cinematography. The station scenes have a vibe that circumferences the design, and so does the political subtext. The latter has an important part, much more than the similitude in drawing a climax set-up.

Well, there is also one twisty nod to Mahesh that giggled me over, when Koshi ties a rope around his waist to not have his dhoti being disrupted before the climax fight. Maheshinte Prathikaram and the crop of some new-gen movies have a hot topic of masculinity. And similar to Mahesh, AK creates a caricature around it’s masculine man. Like the superb stretch where Koshi is left in the countryside. Even the hyped up testosterone fueled climax fight becomes futile. The conflict between these men, who consider themselves as masculine gods just happens to be a road of destruction. Or Take Ranjith’s character Kurian John, which is a quintessence of a hereditary patriarchal system. See how brilliantly Koshi is being part of the chain of Patriarchy – when he slaps his wife amidst the confrontation with his Father.

Sachy is revitalising the entertainment format with vibrance. I have already praised enough of his calibre to elevate the picture to a larger canvas. But again, he brings smashing effectiveness. See the climax fight that happens to be in a market place. It slowly enacts larger crowd one hit after another and finally gets all gritty in the mud as a pumped up showdown. This is how you set-up something in the mainstream format, for big screens. Right from the casting Sachy strikes right chords, including Ranjith who gives a complete contrast and complete knockout performance from his previous do-gooder daddy roles, to Anil Nedumangad who subverts everything he has done before in a clean shaved police officer role.

Everyone might possibly go gaga over Biju Menon, as his role is emphatic and also having mass overtones. But Prithviraj Sukumaran really shook me with surprise, even in choosing such a role to out smashing a vibrant external performance like this. Bring it on, Sachy and take a bow.

 

#AyyappanumKoshiyum Kottayam Town Abhilash

Day-1 ~ ₹2.10 Lakhs
Day-2 ~ ₹2.63 Lakhs

Grand Total = ₹4.74 Lakhs