Big Brother HD Released

Director Siddique's movies that have worked have always had an equal mix of humour, action and sentiments. In his latest film, however, the director, who has also scripted the film has dropped the humour element in favour of more action and a patience-testing plot to pass off as a thriller.


The movie's protagonist 40-year-old Sachidanandan (Mohanlal) is just released from prison after serving a double life sentence for killing a police officer at a juvenile home. His family, however, welcomes him with open arms and within the first 30 minutes, he reveals to them that he wasn't just serving time the past 24 years. To up the suspense quotient, Siddique has also given his protagonist a special skill that aids him in the film's multiple action scenes that include two in the dark and one smack in the middle of a dustbowl.


Sachidanandan's past, however, soon catches up to him and his family, and forcing him to return to the ways he didn't want to. In the middle of all this is a police officer Vedantham IPS (Arbaaz Khan) who is on the hunt for an elusive drug boss Edwin Moses. How Sachidanandan's, Vedantham's and Moses' paths cross is what the film is about, but Siddique opts to use so many tropes and misdirection techniques to get there that by the end of it, the audience could hardly care who Moses is and what his ultimate aim is.


Mohanlal as Sachidanandan is dour-faced for most of the film, except for the comic scenes where he tries to observe the niceties after his life in prison. In fact, more of these scenes could have elevated the film. Arbaaz as Vedantham IPS has a powerful presence, but is underused. His parallel story seems to get lost in the mess that Sachidanandan and friends get entangled in, and the police officer becomes an apologetic footnote, at best.



The film's leading ladies Mirnaa, Honey Rose and Gadha do their parts well in what limited scenes they have. Anoop Menon and Sarjano Khalid as Sachidanandan's brothers Vishnu and Manu, respectively, perform decently. The comedy track from Vishnu Unnikrishnan, Tini Tom and Irshad fall flat, however.



Deepak Dev's songs in the film add a bit of energy that the film, which is 164 minutes long, desperately needed. If Siddique could have kept the run-time in check and maybe stopped short of building Sachidanandan as a superhero, the movie could have passed as a decent watch.