‘Vilayath Buddha’ movie review: mass masala aspirations brings down a film with a compelling core

Even films which do not turn out quite as intended by its makers might leave us with a few moments of magic, just like a broken clock which gets the time right once in a while. In Jayan Nambiar’s debut directorial Vilayath Buddha, one gets a couple of compelling characters caught in not so common situations, lending unlikely depth to what is an otherwise run-of-the-mill mass entertainer lacking any novelty.

One of the characters happens to be Bhaskaran (Shammi Thilakan), a former teacher and panchayat president, whose calling card is his squeaky clean image. On the eve of the panchayat elections, that image takes an irredeemable hit. We see him struggling to come to terms with this fall, as it takes a toll on his mental makeup. Before long, the intense wish to repair his image turns into an obsession, at the centre of which is a sandalwood tree, the eponymous Vilayath Buddha, the scent of which he thinks will be his everlasting legacy after his death.

Chaithanya (Priyamvada) too is yearning to dissociate from the bad name that she has inherited as the daughter of a former sex worker. Getting married to Double Mohanan (Prithviraj), a sandalwood smuggler and a local Robin Hood, is her idea of redemption. Her obsession to lose the stain of her background and move up in life in a way prevents Mohanan from moving away from criminality. She acts as a kind of hindrance to him watering down his goonish persona, at times egging him on to more violence.

These are the kind of absorbing elements one would not associate with a typical mass entertainer, but the film’s larger-than-life ambitions end up squandering them. G.R. Indugopan, who wrote the story on which the film is based, along with co-screenwriter Rajesh Pinnadan, banks more on the massy side of the things, much of which are familiar recreations from umpteen films of the genre. The ego clash template, which became the core of Sachy’s Driving License and Ayyappanum Koshiyum, is again deployed in Vilayath Buddha, but there are quite a few other parallel tracks to distract our attention from it.

The film is filled with so much blot, which contributes in no small measure to its unwieldy three-hour duration. For instance, there is the character of a judge (Suraj Venjaramoodu), whose interactions with Mohanan do not add much to the larger narrative or the presence of a sandalwood smuggling duo who provide just a pointless backdrop to the central conflict. Yet, Shammi Thilakan, with a performance reminiscent of his illustrious father, prevents the film from being a forgettable affair.

Though Vilayath Buddha has some potent plot points which could have made it an effective drama, its mass masala aspirations, which it also fails to fulfill, brings the film down.