Even as a one-liner, Christopher, directed by B Unnikrishnan and written by Udaykrishna, sounds like a fan service superstar vehicle. Mammootty plays a vigilante cop who shoots down rapists in encounters. Considering that writer Udaykrishna (and director B Unnikrishnan) has only crafted hypermasculine narratives featuring men playing the proverbial saviour to women, the execution of the film was on predictable lines – long and mid shots of the stoic hero strutting around the screen in slow-mo, women desperately looking up to him, one-dimensional antagonists, and other shenanigans to glorify the fan vehicle. As usual, despite there being four women actively occupying screen space, they were reduced to mere props. That includes Sneha who plays Home Secretary, Aishwarya Lakshmy as an investigative lawyer, and Amala Paul as ACP—all of them just rallying around the might of Christopher who relentlessly guns down predators. The rest of them are brutally raped and murdered (and it is disturbingly graphic, gruesome, and harrowing ways with zero sensitivity, and there are too many of them). In one scene, they describe genital mutilation before showing it in graphic detail in slow motion.
There is this constant refrain about safeguarding women’s safety or giving “trivia” like ‘at least five women are raped and killed every day in a Bijapur village.’ And funnily, they have no idea what to do with women in such a screenplay than make them victims of abject physical brutality.
That’s the latest from writer Udaykrishna, one of the most successful mainstream scriptwriters in Malayalam cinema, who has been on a winning streak since Pulimurugan – reportedly the first Malayalam film to cross 100 crores. Is his formula getting stale?
Ironically, a few months ago, writer Udaykrishna tried a similar stunt in Monster, headlined by Mohanlal and directed by Vysakh. After making us sit through some excruciatingly below-the-belt sexual comedy from Mohanlal during the initial scenes, the narrative is further routed with skewed lesbian representation. In a scene meant to unravel the ‘coming-out-of-the-closet’ of one of the protagonists, they show her stepping out of darkness (talk about awful metaphors), walking down the stairs, and striking a Nike gym wear photo shoot pose. The two women then exchange a passionate kiss, as the mortified investigating officer (Mohanlal) averts his gaze. When you fail to normalise such a scene, it shows how cluelessly out-of-depth the writer and director are about a marginalised community. This lack of understanding is also unmistakable in the backstory of the women, aggravated by the voyeuristic lens.
In Aarattu, released earlier last year, the B Unnikrishnan-Udaykrishna template did not vary. Mohanlal’s Neyyattinkara Gopan was single, muscular and desirable, with high and low-angle shots of him in slow motion. Women were in awe of him, the general public worshipped him, and he could single-handedly torpedo an army of men. In short, an unabashed alpha male hero vehicle.
Typically, the supporting characters were relegated to singing paeans about him, though Gopan shows no restraint when it comes to talking dirty with women. You can perhaps forgive the template if there was some freshness in execution, but they happily recycled dialogues from Mohanlal’s popular films or their own, including action scenes. Everything was drab and formulaic. Aarattu and Monster were box office disasters, and many viewers were vocal about how they felt these films did not deliver anything interesting. Let us dig into the writer’s filmography to trace the evolution of his brand of films.
Udaykrishna made his debut as a co-writer alongside Sibi K Thomas in the forgettable action-comedy Hitler Brothers, headlining Babu Antony. His writing collaboration with Sibi K Thomas mostly churned comic entertainers. It can also be said that Malayalam cinema was going through one of its worst patches during the time – late 90s and early 2000s. The duo wrote many films during the time like the family drama Amma Ammayi Amma (1998) which had heavy undertones of misogyny, Udayapuram Sultan (1999) which was a case of mistaken identities, and Darling Darling (2000) which had a triangular love story. Dost (2001), as the name suggests, was about friendship. The iconic Kilukkam also had a tasteless sequel called Kilukkam Kilukilukkam (2006), which ticked all the politically incorrect boxes.
While most of their screenplays thrived on slapstick like the hugely popular hit CID Moosa (2003), perhaps they dabbled with somewhat clean humour only in Priyadarshan’s Vettam. A remake of French Kiss, it is one of their rare recall value films to this day.
Joshiy’s Runway (2004), an action thriller, was also an interesting genre switch for the duo that worked, along with Twenty Twenty (2008), which witnessed all the superstars and prominent actors sharing screen space. Lion (2006), on the other hand, was a political/family drama. Joshiy’s Christian Brothers, a multi-star cast film headlining Mohanlal, Suresh Gopi, and Dileep, was an action-packed entertainer set in the backdrop of a family feud. The film was a top-grosser at the box office though it was a messy cauldron of characters embedded in a haphazard narrative in the backdrop of a deafening background score.
Unquestionably, along with superhits, it is their partnership with Dileep that resulted in a series of films with bluntly sexist, crass comedy in Malayalam cinema. That it coincided with his middle-class hero and ‘Janapriyan’ titles was an irony we didn’t need. Mr Marumakan (2012) was a wanton show of misogyny with a hero who takes it upon himself to make a “good woman” out of the heroine, his mother-in-law, and grandmother-in-law. From slapping his wife into submission to tipping someone to rape his rival’s sister as a vengeance plan, the film was triggering, to put it mildly. Then there was the “good woman” trope – the silent, sacrificing, family-loving female leads, who were happily subservient to men.
As far his heroes were concerned, they were those who hailed from royal/upper-caste families and were in exile (Kochi Rajavu, Pokkiri Raja) to heroes who were slyly apologetic about their pedigree (Mohanlal who claimed to be a “poor Varma” in Twenty-Twenty), to prodigal sons hailing from rich affluent Christian families.
In Inspector Garud (2007), the hero marries the heroine to settle scores with her as he believes “marriage can reign her in.” They coat their ‘feuds’ with ‘humour’, which translates to him belittling her on every possible occasion. But the most disturbing film to come from that club has to be Maya Mohini (2012). Dileep is part of a masquerade as a “desirable woman” and his “Mohini” is nearly groped or lusted on by every man who eyes her. Their idea of macabre humour has to be Mohini, who is desired by the men in a film that has three heroines. Let’s not even get to the crass sex humour that runs throughout the narrative. Nonetheless, the film was a commercial success.
Pokkiri Raja (highest grosser of 2010) starring Mammootty and Prithviraj had a quintessential Tamil mass hero template peppered with humour. It was about two brothers who had to separate in their childhood due to a family misunderstanding and how providence brought them together. Pokkiri Raja (Mammootty) was a funny don who prided on his poor English skills, and that turned out to be the unique selling point of the otherwise middling potboiler. Pokkiri Raja in a pristine white shirt, mundu, handlebar moustache, chunky gold chains, and bracelets is ushered in the backdrop of an array of Innova cars and an army of men. Typically women were around to be objectified or rescued by men. Surprisingly, Malayalees didn’t seem to mind this abject rip-off of a Telugu or Tamil mass hero intro. The Udaykrishna-Sibi K Thomas team tried a similar template with Rajadhi Raja, a watered-down version of Rajnikant’s Basha.
Once Udaykrishna went solo, somehow, the template worsened. It started with Pulimurugan, which revolved around a truck driver (Mohanlal), who was something of a legend in his village for slaying man-eating tigers. It saw the reinforcement of the alpha male hero perfected by Mohanlal in Narasimham, Aaram Thampuran, and Ravana Prabhu reach its putrid stage. Murugan was larger-than-life and indomitable, surrounded by women and men who were in awe of him. Between the first and last scenes, we seem to lose count of the number of times his virtues are extolled by his friends and family. He was equated to Swami Ayyappa, who managed to extract a tiger’s milk, and was described as a tiger’s greatest nemesis.
Some of the ballads surrounding him were reminiscent of the phantom lore— “A man who knows the jungle can find the tiger, sense his nearness, and even measure the length of his distance.” The man v/s beast hunt in the film was rather overwhelming as Mohanlal did somersaults, Mowgli-like long jumps, ran between gigantic trees, and finally, within the blink of an eye, threw a loop around his neck and finished the “400-kilo” beast with his knife.
Post the success of Pulimurugan, it seemed that a spate of masala potboilers in a similar template would arise. Unsurprisingly, it resulted in Mammootty’s stiff-necked professor who was also an undercover cop in Masterpiece, Madhura Raja, a tepid sequel to Pokkiri Raja, and the hattrick misfires—Aarattu (Gopan is an undercover agent), Monster (Mr Singh is an undercover cop) and Christopher (thankfully without a dramatic disguise).
Right from the beginning, Udaykrishna and Sibi K Thomas operated within a very masculine-centric universe where women were always meant to play second fiddle. In fact, that is one model that has remained constant though they switched genres and expanded scale. In a way, the representation of women in one of their earlier films Amma Ammayi Amma, a family melodrama, underlines their perspective about women in general.
They are slotted in binaries—between the mundum neriyathum (a set of two white drapes worn as a saree) sacrificial mothers v/s made-up, salwar kameez-clad, aggressive, greedy moms. The sisters are perennially depressed and voiceless, while the wives are tamed for being ambitious and real. Also, they made sure to pick heroines who were half their age, with physical attributes that catered to conventional beauty standards.
Every woman has to be obliged to, under the protection of, or in awe of a man. Perhaps, one can argue that every female representation needn’t be empowering, and a masala potboiler film can get away with such liberties. But it is the absolute lack of effort (or nuance) to bring some semblance of agency to a female character that is grating, and even in 2023, Udaykrishna isn’t willing to forfeit that thought. Even more harrowing is his half-baked efforts to “emancipate women”— like in Masterpiece, where Mammootty’s Edward Livingston insists during every interaction with a woman that he “respects women”, so much that it turns into an unintentional piece of comedy.
In Christopher, the makers are valiantly trying to upgrade their nonexistent feminist perspective by talking about ‘consent’ (‘No means No’), for instance. There is this scene when Christopher goes to meet a young woman who is hospitalised after being set on fire by a boy whose overtures she shunned. And we are told by her parents that she was inspired by Christopher’s empowering video about consent thereby putting all the focus on him. The execution and writing are so strained and comical that you know neither the maker nor the writer has any perception of the matter beyond social media hashtags.
The box office fate of the last few films written by Udaykrishna has more than made it clear that the audience is no longer tickled pink by such formulaic narratives. Yet, seasoned actors and superstars like Mohanlal and Mammootty still give dates for such films, which might point towards an uncomfortable truth—not only has their political correctness indicator turned rusty, but they may actually enjoy driving these alpha male fan service vehicles. It seems like a comfort zone for them.
For now, Udaykrishna and the likes of B Unnikrishnan, Vysakh, and Ajay Vasudev's lives depend on that. So in reality, the onus falls on Mammootty and Mohanlal to stop that juggernaut.
Neelima Menon has worked in the newspaper industry for more than a decade. She has covered Hindi and Malayalam cinema for The New Indian Express and has worked briefly with Silverscreen.in. She now writes exclusively about Malayalam cinema, contributing to Fullpicture.in and thenewsminute.com. She is known for her detailed and insightful features on misogyny and the lack of representation of women in Malayalam cinema.