{"id":142,"date":"2021-05-26T15:15:05","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T19:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/?p=142"},"modified":"2021-05-26T15:15:06","modified_gmt":"2021-05-26T19:15:06","slug":"mikhael-dir-haneef-adeni-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/2021\/05\/26\/mikhael-dir-haneef-adeni-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikhael (dir. Haneef Adeni, 2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on November 12, 2019.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stared at my computer for a very long time trying to figure out how to explain the plot of Mikhael<\/strong>.  There\u2019s gold smuggler George Peter (Siddique) and his driver who end up dead, murdered under mysterious circumstances.  There\u2019s George\u2019s rival, William Davis (Jayaprakash) and his sons, one of whom is murdered by Marco Jr (Unni Mukundan), George\u2019s brother, who initially believes the rivals are behind the murders.  The murders are investigated by two policeman, Muhammad Easa (J. D. Chakravarthy) and Isaac (Suraj Venjaramoodu), who fix on Doctor Michael John (Nivin Pauly) as a suspect, based on the use of a scalpel as a weapon, and the fact that a man named Patrick (Kalabhavan Shajon), a man acting as a go-between for the rival gangs, is shot and ends up dying when he\u2019s brought to the casualty room at a hospital where Doctor Michael works.  Isaac fixes on Michael as a suspect quite quickly, but he also realizes that Michael is connected to Easa, and he swiftly attempts to arrest both Easa and Michael.  Easa convinces Isaac to hold off on the arrest of Michael until he can tell him Michael\u2019s story, which involves the son of George jumping off the school roof after he\u2019d been humiliated by Michael\u2019s sister Jenni (Navani Devanand) in a fight, George trying to exact revenge for his son\u2019s death by stalking Jenni and trying to provoke her to jump off the roof as well, George killing Michael\u2019s mother (Shanthi Krishna), and putting Michael\u2019s step-father, Anthony (Ashokan) into a Santa suit \u2013 as well as covering his mouth with tape and banding his eyes with something involving ants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(George is so distressed about his son\u2019s death that he goes to see a doctor, detailing how he can\u2019t rest until he gets revenge.  He asks the doctor what\u2019s wrong with him, and the doctor bluntly tells him, \u201cYou\u2019re mad.\u201d  He\u2019s not wrong.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point Davis decides he needs to go after Michael as well, kidnapping Jenni.  Marco decides he needs to go after Michael, too, upping the intimidation game by \u2013 I kid you not \u2013 taking a shower at Anthony\u2019s house and then walking out of the shower, through the house, and into his waiting Jaguar, all in his underpants.  I suppose fans of Unni Mukundan might consider this fan service, helped along amiably by the fact that he\u2019s sporting the best hair and hipster beard of everyone in the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I haven\u2019t even got to the part where we find out the back story of Easa that connects him to Michael, and provides the reason why he\u2019s played a part in Michael\u2019s revenge plot (hint:  it involves necrophelia.  I am not even remotely kidding about this.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And after all this, I\u2019m still not sure I\u2019ve managed to pull out all the threads that run through the film.  Haneef Adeni, who also wrote the script, throws everything at this film.  I get that big, massy films are meant to be larger than life, and that they can be a bit of \u201ceverything and the kitchen sink\u201d.  And I generally try to avoid playing armchair filmmaker, trying to second guess a writer or director or editor\u2019s choices.  But Mikhael<\/strong> is a film that made me want to pull out my hair, I was so overwhelmed by it all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I\u2019m frustrated, because in the midst of all of this big old massy mess of a film there was potential \u2013 that could have been served by a judicious editing of the script for a start.  There were so many scenes that did nothing to further either the plot, or the character arc of Michael, that could easily have been trimmed to make more of a cohesive whole.  The one thing I know as a writer and occasional editor myself, is that you really must resist the urge to put every idea you have into your writing, and you cannot remain wedded to every idea you have.  Part of good writing is the art of knowing what to take out as much as it is knowing what to put in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m also frustrated by the background score, which is, by turns, cheesy and tacky and incredibly overbearing.  This is the second time this year that I\u2019ve found Gopi Sundar\u2019s background music insufferable (the other film was Prithviraj\u2019s Lucifer<\/strong>).  Sundar has proved himself capable of excellent film music (for Ustaad Hotel<\/strong> and Bangalore Days<\/strong>, for example), but I do wonder if this kind of massy hero film brings out the worst in him as a music director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one thing that did *not* disappoint was the action scenes and fight choreography, credited under \u201cThrills\u201d.  And it was worth taking a screenshot of the folks in charge of those Thrills:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mikhael_Thrills\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll admit to not knowing Raja Shekar and Dinesh Kashi at all, but Mafia Sasi has an impressive filmography in stunts for Malayalam movies, and Supreme Sundhar, in addition to working on a number of films, most recently was the action choreographer for Lijo Jose Pellissery\u2019s Jallikattu<\/strong> (which, if you\u2019ve seen it, you will know how important that role was). Dhilip Subbarayan probably has the broadest filmography of all of them, having worked mainly in Tamil cinema, but he also worked on stunts for Rajiv Ravi\u2019s 2016 film Kammatipaadam<\/strong>.  The action sequences are impeccable, beautifully choreographed and excellently shot by cinematographer Vishnu Panicker (whose work here is somewhat uneven, but I\u2019m prepared to put some of that down to the film\u2019s occasional shifts in tone, one other problem with its execution).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mikhael_Jeep\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The question has often been raised on social media as to why Nivin Pauly would choose a film like Mikhael<\/strong>, especially after Haneef Adeni\u2019s debut film The Great Father<\/strong> with Mammootty (a film I really disliked, for many of the same reasons I struggled with Mikhael<\/strong>).  Pauly has already proved he can play a tough character with shades of grey in Premam<\/strong>, but Mikhael<\/strong> gives him scope to try out those terrific massy action scenes \u2013 there\u2019s one in particular, where he exits his car as it\u2019s still moving, and the car drifts in an arc behind him, and quite honestly, it\u2019s an elegant bit of filmmaking.  So I can understand that as a draw for an actor looking to add a traditional hero film to his repertoire.  It\u2019s just unfortunate that the script gives him so little to work with apart from that, despite everything Haneef Adeni has thrown at it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on November 12, 2019. I stared at my computer for a very long time trying to figure out how to explain the plot of Mikhael.  There\u2019s gold smuggler George Peter (Siddique) and his driver who end up dead, murdered under mysterious circumstances.  There\u2019s George\u2019s…<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingMikhael (dir. Haneef Adeni, 2019)<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[212],"tags":[214,213,215,63,14,219,45,217,218,69,35,216],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-malayalam-movies","tag-ashokan","tag-haneef-adeni","tag-j-d-chakravarthy","tag-malayalam-cinema","tag-malayalam-movies","tag-mikhael","tag-mollywood","tag-navani-devanand","tag-nivin-pauly","tag-shanthi-krishna","tag-siddique","tag-suraj-venjaramoodu","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}