Big Brother movie review: Mohanlal written all over it

“Dear God, I can manage to save myself from my foes but please do save me from my friends,” says Shetty (Sidhique), referring to Sachidanandan's friends. It is one of the memorable scenes from acclaimed director Siddique's latest flick 'Big Brother'.

Sachidanandan (Mohanlal) had been in jail for 24 years for twin murders. He killed two men – a person who troubled his stepmother and a cop who troubled his friends in jail. Sachidanandan gets freedom because of the best efforts of his younger brother Manu (Sarjano Khalid). However, the jail life has left an indelible scar on Sachidanandan and he finds it difficult to lead a normal life. In a curious twist to the story, Manu gets kidnapped and Sachidanandan treads his own path to find the kidnappers and rescue his brother.

Big Brother marks Mohanlal's third collaboration with director Siddique, after Vietnam Colony and Ladies And Gentleman. And well, there just remains a question if it is challenging to create stories that connect with the current crop of viewers. We leave that to you to decide.

The film has an array of talented actors right from Sarjano Khalid to Chetan Hansraj. But too many characters and the colouful songs appear to be a distraction to the main plot. And only saving grace is Mohanlal's screen presence and his fight sequence. Arbaaz Khan makes a decent debut in Malayalam though his character would have become better if it had more depth.

The action is raw and solid, however, some action scenes are unreasonably stretched. There is an attempt to infuse comedy with Vishnu Unnikrishnan's one-liners. The storyline is not cohesive and the narrative is loosely stitched together.

The camera moves rapidly in the action scenes, and the editing is breakneck so that it is hard to tell who is doing what to whom. And there are also times when there is an over-reliance on slow motion to highlight specific moves and stunts.

You can spend two hours and 45-minutes in theatre only if you bury your sense of logic.

Big Brother is only for Mohanlal fans who love to watch him in larger-than-life roles.