If, during the introduction of Nivin Pauly in an SUV in Ramachandra Boss & Co, you dozed off for a bit, you wouldn’t have missed much. Chances are, you will still find him driving the SUV, kicking up sand in the desert for whole minutes, before getting out to allow viewers a preview of himself. That this is one of the more tolerable sequences in the film tells you the amount of lameness awaiting you in the rest. Ramachandra Boss features a bunch of actors who have given memorable performances before, but none of them, including Nivin Pauly, can do much in this badly-wanting script about a heist and all that goes wrong with it.
Haneef Adeni, who has made films like Mikhael and The Great Father before, has written and directed Ramachandra Boss. He attempts to give a comic treatment to a heist set in the Gulf, with Nivin leading a gang of desperate individuals, handpicked, it would seem, for how pressed they are for money. Nivin’s title character is accompanied by Vinay Forrt, in a full-fledged comic role that he pulls off comfortably well, even at its lowest point.
It is a testimony to the actors that they don’t come out looking bad even with such a hopeless script. Jaffer Idukki, Mamitha Baiju, Aarsha Chandini Baiju, and Vijilesh Karayad all play their parts well. Because of them, a few of the jokes do turn out funny. But these are far and few in between in a very poorly written script. Nivin, fresh after his unapologetic performance as a rogue of a man in Thuramukham, makes every sincere effort to be the unintentionally funny Boss, the leader who keeps getting everything wrong. He would have excelled in a better version of the script.
Trailer of the film:
Hindi actor Munish is poorly cast as the villain. He projects the expected screen presence, walking in suits, exuding a cloud of smoke from his vape, and waving a flute in his fiercest moments. But the flute-playing and his loud screams simply add to the juvenile act that the whole film turns out to be with its cartoonish missions and props. Cartoonish treatments work when it is deliberate like in Double Barrel, and executed with a certain conviction. Ramachandra Boss, in its simplification of complex heist plans, simply looks like an amateur play that was hastily written and staged without a rehearsal.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the series/film. TNM Editorial is independent of any business relationship the organisation may have with producers or any other members of its cast or crew.