August 15
By Cine Critic|April 2nd, 2011|11:30:25

Director Shaji Kailas has taken the character of the likeable cop Perumal from the 1988 film August 1 (directed by Siby Malayil) and has made the thriller, August 15.While the earlier film (inspired from the 1973 movie The Day of the Jackal) was full of lively and powerful characters, including a tough looking professional killer played by Captain Raju, the new version is a letdown, without a credible storyline or a worthy script.
 It all begins with chief minister VG (Nedumudi Venu) seemingly on his deathbed in a private hospital, with his supporters and the media getting ready for the bad news. But the CM miraculously survives and it is learnt that he was poisoned. So our Perumal enters the scene to investigate the issue.The previous instalment of this story was humane to a certain extent with the investigator and the CM (playing the late Sukumaran) being friends from their student days. Also, the cat and mouse game between the protector and the killer (Captain Raju) was quite intriguing.

Here, Perumal is machismo redefined riding a sturdy motorcycle, wearing slick sunglasses and denim pants. As if this was not enough to define his 'cool' quotient, he is even shown flirting with girls in a cyber cell to get the call-list of certain cell phone numbers.He is a typical tech-savvy know-all, who taps away at the keyboard of his laptop, and reads up Poison on Wikipedia, as part of his research (no idea if this was meant to give comic relief to the already bored viewer).The less said about the killer with psychopathic traits the better. We know that Siddique is a master of disguises but here he tries to proves how seriously he takes his job.

In a role where his heroism is celebrated in virtually every frame, Mammootty looks handsome and has done the role in a devoted way. But all the efforts are not enough to salvage a poorly written film. Of course, there is enough for the gallery, as he takes on even the fiery criminals all alone, in style with his sunglasses intact and often without a gun!Meghna Raj and Swetha Menon, the female leads as per the posters, have nothing much to do. Lalu Alex, as a silly ADGP, does manage to tickle the funny bone at times. Now, it is certainly not fair to compare a character in a film with one in the earlier version, but the professional killer played by Siddique is nowhere near the one made famous by Captain Raju.

Overall, August 15 fails to provide the thrills and becomes a silly hero-worshipping political film.

Verdict: Disappointing

Reviewed By KN

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