Love Action Drama Movie Review
Reviewer: Chandra Mohan Gopinath
The best thing about Love Action Drama is that it brings back Nivin Pauly to what he is good at and more so into his comfort zone. In the last couple of films, we saw the actor doing roles that looked like he was in an alien world and acted with many discomforts. The pointer is obviously on Mikhael and Kaayamkulam Kochunni where the actor was found vulnerable, and he got exposed entirely. Moreover, now the bad thing about LAD. This film suffers as a result of poor writing and a story that could not make much of an impact in the end.
If I am to write a few words for the synopsis, it isn’t a herculean task at all but be prepared to read some SPOILERS here. The film borrows the names for the two pivotal roles from two cult characters from a yesteryear hit. So we have Dinesh and Shobha, the two persons who are at the thick of action here. Dinesh doesn’t like to do any work and lives life with the hard-earned money of his parents. He falls in love with Shobha, whom I meet during the marriage ceremony of his ex-lover. They both like each other, but Shobha puts forward a condition for their romance to get a final nod from her. Moreover, that is, he should stop his alcoholism and smoking habits. Will it happen? That is precisely what Love Action Drama portray.
The debut directorial of Dhyan Sreenivasan which also has Aju Varghese donning the role of a producer does not fully justify its title but still gets the much-needed pass mark to put it into those films which we call as average. There is a little dose of drama towards the end, there is an effort put in by the protagonist to win over his lady love without much of seriousness as part of the romantic track, and there is a sequence of action towards the end for namesake. The presence of all these elements doesn’t do any uplifting to the cinematic experience, mainly due to an uninspiring and lacklustre love track and unimpressive writing. The only highlight in LAD is the all-out Nivin Pauly show where he gets a chance and space to act freely within his safe zone and the jokes that mostly comes in the first half.
However, once those pre-intermission portions reach its finishing point, the film run out of steam and become a tiring watch. The problem is that Dhyan, who has written the story and screenplay himself takes a wafer-thin plot and stretch it too much. The love track which should be the USP here lacks any conviction and seriousness. The way the character of Shobha is written and shown and how easily she falls for an irresponsible guy like Dinesh didn’t make any sense at all. Again what comes to the rescue of the film is the combination of Nivin and Aju along with their comical moments.
On the performance side, I already mentioned about Nivin when I started my review. Just adding to that, Nivin had a boy next door image till movies like Mikhael and Kochunni happened. That lost image is regained in LAD. Aju Varghese plays the perfect foil to Dinesh as Sagar. The chemistry between Nivin and Nayanthara was found wanting and though the actress these days even with a small role can manage a significant presence was looking out of place. The character of Shobha suffered primarily due to the shoddily written nature.
Renji Panicker, Sreenivasan, Vineeth Sreenivasan, Jude Anthony, Basil Joseph, Durga Krishna, and Mallika Sukumaran are part of the supporting cast, but none of them has a meaty presence in the film. Thanks to Jomon T John and Roby Varghese Raj, the visual treatment helped the frames look richer. Shaan Rahmaan has done a decent job with the songs and background score. Kudukku song which is already in the hit charts was used wisely as a song as well as in the background a few times.
Dhyan Sreenivasan’s debut attempt could have been kind enough had he focused much more on his writing and shown us a story with a lot more depth in it. The execution of this average script was not bad, and some of the comedies in the first half working well are what that gives this rom-com a much-needed facelift. If you are someone who likes Nivin Pauly enacting something he has done during his initial phase as an actor, Love Action Drama would taste sweeter to you. In totality, it was an average entertainer for me.
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