Megastar Mammootty solves muddled murder mystery.
Venicile Vyapari ("The Merchant of Venice", Malayalam, dir. Shafi, 2011)
Starring: Mammootty, Kavya Madhavan, Poonam Bajwa, Suraj Venjarammoodu, Jagathy Sreekumar, Janardhanan, Salim Kumar, Vijaya Raghavan, Guinness Pakru, Biju Menon
Worth Revisiting? I would like to screencap the opening credits at some point, they are kind of wonderful and cracktastic. But I'm having a hard time reconciling the fact that writer James Albert -- of Totally Filmi Casa Fave Classmates --- also wrote the script for this. Venicile Vyapari is a messy film that meanders all over the place before finally getting to the point, in stark contrast to the carefully crafted mystery of Classmates. However, the film is set in Alappuzha (AKA Alleppey), described as "the Venice of the East" (hence the Venice of the film's title -- the merchant in this case being Mammootty), and the scenery is incredibly beautiful. The megastar isn't given much to do except be the megastar, but there are some lovely performances in the film, most notably from Kavya Madhavan and Jagathy Sreekumar.
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