SPIRIT ...movie Review

The combination of Ranjith and Mohanlal should have been enough to raise the spirit of the malayalam movie Spirit ,but it really doesnt reach the nidus it was expected to .

For one it has  ,specially in the  second half a feebly docusocial lecture feel to it on  evils of drinking but if the intention was this then it would or rather should have made an impact .

After all Kerala is known for its drinking problem sic ,i mean the malaylaee is well known to drown his happiness or sadness in the vile liquid .

He needs no excuse to reach for the peg be it a marriage ,a death ,a good or a bad news 

A  hartal of course which is repeated regularly is more than an excuse for downing a few .

The liqour sales  touches  crores of rupees  during most festivals like Vishu and Onam and  the breaking news eagerly awaited  is of the district which made the maximum sales .

The line outside the beverage corporation is the only orderly line  in the whole state !

As the akbari contractor an ilk known by thier  dress and demanour to be an oily garishly dressed  alec with the right contacts at the wrong places laughs his way to the banks ,many familes go bankrupt as thier bread winner rolls in the brew  reducing  him to a slave to the habit . 

The film brilliantly portrays one such family that of Manian the plumber who most of the time is lost in the vapours of liqour clouding his faculties and goes around hitting his wife and children and generally being a destructive force ,there are large number of Manians in Kerala today and the Government never bothers about the ills that thier liqour policy does to the common man whom they are supposed to protect  as they count the largesse coming out of its sales and are preoccupied with distributing the spoils to thier near and dear .

Another class too is depcited that of the social drinking elite who are intellectulas stimulated by Bacchus in thier creative instincts or money raking business people or dhoti clad politicians who need the right chemistry for thie machiavellian machinations and vote garnering .

many of them are smug in thier confidence that  they know when to stop and a couple of pegs a day does good for them .

some amongst them cannot stop it when they want and go the Manian way albiet in thier own environment

Having worked in an IMA run deadiction centre as a volunteer medical officer I know the trials and tribulations an addict goes through to get out of his habit which is easier said than done .

Mohanlal as ever has no failings in his histrionics and Ranjith delivers  his crispy dialogues ,Thilakan the veteran is  wasted as a druken bum ,while  Lena does a brilliant protrayal of a smart commissoner of police

It is Nandu who really excels as Manian .

The picture hits the  malayalee and his habit where it should  in his solar plexus and tells him he is not the great intellectual he thinks while he down his peg on the rocks but just a fool lost in his habit

  I hope it also makes him come down from his Oh I know all attitude