Chapters Movie Reviews

It's the new mantra in Malayalam cinema. When in doubt, you narrate a story in the multi linear style, where the lives of a few get intertwined in some strange way. It will fetch you some respect and there is all probability that your film will be defined as a “New Generation movie”, whatever it means!
Debutant director Sunil Ibrahim has used this technique to narrate a rather amazingly simple plot in Chapters. After a never-ending first half that makes you bored to death, the film gets some momentum in its second half.

Krishna Kumar (Nivin Pauly) is a good for nothing lad, wasting his time with an equally lazy gang of friends. To make some quick bucks for his sister's wedding, they venture out for a risky adventure that will make them rich. This is the basic premise of the first chapter in this four-chapter saga.

Let's make it clear straightaway, this film is not really bad and there glimpses of promise here and there as well. But the problem is the way the story unfolds and perhaps a more interesting storyline and a better script would have done wonders here.

Connecting the links is perhaps the key to this narrative style, but here it has been done in a rather hasty way. There are some loose ends as well, but we can't discuss them as its part of the film's suspense. The visuals are good and the background score is fine as well.

The highlight performances of the film come from those who are not playing the really important roles, like Shine Tom, Dharmajan Bolghatty and Vineeth Kumar for instance. Nivin Pauly, who plays the lead, is fine at best. Gauthami Nair, who was good in Second Show and Diamond Necklace look disinterested in the proceedings. The rest of the cast has limited roles to play.

Chapters is an experiment, which can be appreciated only for its narrative style that is relatively new in this part of the globe. But the sad part is that every third experiment in Malayalam now is being churned out in this passion.