Mera Naam Shaji

Some films bring about expectations of big laughs and hilarious goof-ups just with the names on the banner. Nadirsha's name on the directors cap is one such. 

After Amar Akbar Anthony and Kattappanayile Ritwik Roshan, this is Nadirsha's attempt at a hattrick at the box office. And with names like Biju Menon, Asif Ali, Baiju Santosh, Sreenivasan, Dharmajan Bolgatty, Jaffer Idukki, and the likes, a success could have been all the more expected. But, as the adage goes, 'story is always the king'.

Three men, all named Shaji, come into each other's life to bring either calm or chaos. Shaji, a goonda from Kozhikode, takes on a political quotation and as things unfurl the other two Shajis' are pulled into the spiral caused by the goonda.

The camera for Mera Naam Shaji cranked by Vinod Illampally really lifts the story. Baiju Santhosh makes a sound comeback as the taxi driver Shaji. His Trivandrum slang makes his character believable . Music by Jake's Bejoy is yet another factor that works in its favour. 

However the story is wobbly. The story by Dileep Ponnan and Shani Khader tries hard to be a thriller and yet falls back on the thrill and the humour. With a dose of cringy and chauvinistic humour, Mera Naam Shaji roots itself on the fence of whether it's a family friendly cinema. Biju Menon tries to bring in humour, but himself is inconsistent as the Malabar-slang speaking goonda Shaji. Asif Ali's character is poorly written.

At the heart of it the cinema had a story that could have worked if not for a number of cliches poorly executed. Mera Naam Shaji gets stuck trying to be a comedy thriller, in the end becoming neither of the two.