There are times when you see the work of a first-time filmmaker and tell yourself that it looks like the work of a veteran filmmaker, because the amount of effort that went into the writing and directing is readily apparent. And there are times when you look at the work of a veteran filmmaker and tell yourself that it looks like the work of a novice.
Mirage made me ask the latter. It's jaw-dropping, but in the worst way possible. I was stunned beyond belief at the massive downgrade I just witnessed in the new film from one of Malayalam cinema's most celebrated thriller directors.
Look, Joseph has always been one of those filmmakers whose primary strength lies in his ability to conjure up impressive twists and turns rather than the overall craft. His cinema is not exactly the kind that makes you write essays about the cinematography, direction, or performances. Granted, the presence of actors like Mohanlal, Prithviraj, or Murali Gopy has in the past helped smooth out some of the rough edges in his earlier scripts.
But those scripts gave these actors something to do. They gave the characters played by these actors a strong, notable personality, even when the supporting characters feel like they were borrowed from Malayalam teleserials. Unfortunately, Mirage is a far cry from Jeethu’s best films, such as Memories or Drishyam 2 (I prefer the sequel!). It has no redeeming trait whatsoever.
There's the sense that this film was born out of an urge to make a film with as many twists as possible, so many that it would make even the heads of M. Night Shyamalan and Christopher Nolan spin. Because even they wouldn't have dreamt of cramming this level of absurdity even in their weakest films. What we see in Mirage is the extreme case of self-indulgent filmmaking.
It feels like something that came out of the early 2000s, when Malayalam cinema was going through its worst phase. It feels like a leftover script of B. Unnikrishnan or AK Saajan. It feels like something that was made to do someone a favour as soon as possible. But this is not the kind of favour that writers like Salim-Javed or Crazy Mohan delivered in their peak phase. This feels like the kind of favour that someone did half-heartedly, in a rush. Of course, these are assumptions. I don't know what exactly led to the creation of this... abomination.
Perhaps Mirage should've been sold as a dark comedy, because there are places that some audience members, including yours truly, couldn't help but chuckle. Perhaps some of the expressions of actor Sampath Raj conceal a clue as to how audiences should approach this film. And there are places where our reaction cannot be anything other than repulsion, because the twists are so... ugly. Really, what were they thinking?
Mirage runs, I believe, a bit more than 150 minutes, and I can't for the life of me figure out why it had to be that long. I think even a child could guess exactly what was going to happen before the intermission card showed up with a surprise twist. But it only gets worse post-intermission. All the twists feel improvised and random without any thought given to whether all these developments feel organic and coherent. Twist for the sake of twist. All these revelations register the complete opposite effect of what Drishyam 2 did.
And it doesn't help that every actor delivers their lines in the same tone, not to mention the forced intrusion, at times, of English lines. We found this kind of stilted writing in the recent thrillers written by Midhun Manuel Thomas, which also seemed desperate to look "international" rather than Indian, and ended up looking like neither.
Mirage, too, falls prey to such tendencies, but that's just a small percentage of the number of atrocities it ends up committing. And what about all those unintentionally comical fights and shootouts? Really, what were they thinking? The boredom that crept in post-interval — because none of the characters have anything interesting to offer, and they talk a lot — evolved into fatigue once the final twist was unleashed.
I left the theatre with a lot of questions: Did Jeethu Joseph really make this? Are Asif Ali and Aparna Balamurali, just coming off the success of Kishkindha Kaandam, really in this? Or were they just a... mirage? Well, the film at least did justice to its title in one way: My hope of seeing another great thriller from Jeethu Joseph proved to be nothing but a mirage.
Film: Mirage
Director: Jeethu Joseph
Cast: Asif Ali, Aparna Balamurali, Hakkim Shah, Hannah Reji Koshy, Deepak Parambol
Rating: 1/5
