'Johny Johny Yes Appa' review: Kunchacko Boban picked yet another wrong film

The makers appear to have a strange sense of what comedy is, making it look like fun when a villainous man takes advantage of innocent people.
'Johny Johny Yes Appa' review: Kunchacko Boban picked yet another wrong film
'Johny Johny Yes Appa' review: Kunchacko Boban picked yet another wrong film
Written by:

It appears like Kunchacko Boban’s movie choosing device has gone faulty. He has managed to pick yet another one that’s not going to work for him.

You can’t really judge a movie by its name, so you might forgive the makers for naming a film Johny Johny Yes Appa, after a good old nursery rhyme. You might find a connection too. That little rhyme was about Johny caught stealing sugar and lying about it. The Johny in the movie is however nearly never caught.

He starts the habit as an eight-year-old – stealing, provoking his elder brother to steal, lying about it and then feeling happy when the brother has to take all the blame. It is actually made to appear “cute” with a bit of jolly background music and the titles scrolling over a winking little Johny.

The movie proceeds for a good long time in this manner, the adult Johny (Kunchacko of course) doing in a larger scale what child Johny did. He earns all the good name, while the big brother who grows up to be Tini Tom became known as a thief, got thrown away from the house for marrying a girl of another caste. There is also a younger brother played by Sharaf-U-Dheen, who the director wants to portray as a good-for-nothing fellow.

But then it is he who appears to have a heart, and actually visits the older brother at his home, and shares a drink with him. Johny on the other hand has no remorse when others get punished for his doings, and actually smiles away like he has seen something funny when a petty thief is always picked and beaten up for his crimes.

There is also a much-casually shown relationship in the middle of all this, of Johny and his childhood sweetheart (Anu Sithara). Her dad, played by Kalabhavan Shajohn, and his sidekick Sebaan add even more senseless bits made to look like comedy.

One can’t be sure what gave the idea that there is humour in getting innocent people to suffer for someone else’s crimes. For all that Tini Tom bit and the petty thief bit are portrayed as comedy. Joji Thomas, who wrote the script, and G Marthandan, who directed it, seem to have thought it is cute to portray an eight-year-old as cunning, and cuter still to make his grown-up version continue in this manner.

But then Johny appears to newly grow a heart when he comes across a troubled young lad called Adam, on one of his burglary nights. Adam (Sanoop) brings trouble, shaking the reputation that Johny had built with years of lies and betrayals.

A new storyline begins midway, kicking into the background all of Johny’s evil doings till date as if they never happened and from all the sad music it would even appear he is the wronged one, when people call him a thief and his wronged brothers celebrate. But it is suddenly all about Adam, his mother (Mamta Mohandas) and an angry jail superintendent (Lena).

It is like Joji had two story ideas, he wrote them both down, and then placed them one after the other. Let the first half be all ‘fun’ with the hero being the nastiest person around, and let the second half be all ‘sentimental’ where the nasty hero turns a heroic hero by helping young Adam. By having feelings, that he never had for his brothers when they suffered because of him, for a total stranger. So nice.

And just as abruptly, the movie ends, without any attempt to fill the gaps or give meaning to all that was shown.

Actors are merely wasted in their trying-to-be-funny roles. Sharaf-U-Dheen who recently showed his potential playing a cruel harasser in Varathan is wasted doing sad comedy. So is Shajohn. Vijayaraghavan as a naïve dad is merely noticeable. Anu Sithara is the typical 90s ‘heroine’, not really crucial to the script. Mamta just has to sit and look sad. Even Nedumudi Venu is brought in for a scene or two, no one knows why.

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.

Related Stories

No stories found.
The News Minute
www.thenewsminute.com