Bhramam review: Frame to frame remake but engaging!

BHRAMAM (Malayalam)

Producers: A.P. International & Viacom 18 Motion Studios

Director: Ravi K Chandran

Cast: Prithviraj Sukumaran, Mamta Mohandas, Unni Mukundan,Shankar, Unni Mukundan, Jagadish, Rashi Khanna and Ananya

Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video

Rating:

By Jyothi Venkatesh

Young aspiring pianist Ray Mathews (Prithviraj Sukumaran) gets into serious trouble when he crosses paths with yesteryear super star and romantic hero Uday Kumar (Shankar) and his sexy, young and beautiful but ambitious wife Simi (Mamta Mohandas). Ray is a pianist who’s pretending to be blind because he finds it’s easier to get work and cheap accommodation too that way, due to people’s sympathy for him whereas In Andhadhun, the Hindi original of this Malayalam film , the reason had to do with the protagonist Akash wanting to become a better musician.

Prithviraj makes a attempt to tackle the tricky role with his usual flair, evoking the right amounts of sympathy or even the opposite for his character and when compared to his insipid performances in the other Malayalam films of his released on the same OTT platform this year, scores with his nuanced portrayal of the so called blind pianist.

Raashi Khanna as Roy’s girlfriend and Ananya as the muscleman cop’s wife are just about okay and passable. Though she shows a lot of promise in the introduction scenes, she has been wasted in rather a half baked role. Shankar has hardly any role as such, like Anil Dhawan in Andhadhun and what’s more, is equally unexpressive to the core. Like Tabu in the original, a younger Mamta Mohandas succeeds in stealing the scene, and fits perfectly into the difficult and complex but bordering on negative character of Simi.

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Unni Mukundan succeeds more in showing off his ripping muscles as a non-actor than his emotions as an actor and is a big letdown as an antagonist in his role, and unintentionally he does succeed in raising some laughs. Jagadish scores in his role of a greedy and corrupt doctor who is out of work at his clinic.

Ravi K. Chandran who has been the cinematographer for several noteworthy films in Bollywood does a neat job as the DOP but unfortunately he has not been able to show his prowess as a director with this film especially since it is almost a frame by frame copy of the hit Hindi film which has been made in almost every regional language including Maestro in Telugu sometime back.