"All politicians are cousins. All are corrupt, among them not even a single PATRIOT! That's this country's curse." This is just a part of a fiery, elaborate monologue delivered by Mammootty in the climax of the 1986 I.V. Sasi film "Vaartha". It also happens to be a Mohanlal film. Scripted by T. Damodharan, the film gave them both equal significance. I have a couple of reasons for bringing up this film. One, Mahesh Narayanan is a fan of the I.V. Sasi-T. Damodharan films, so I assume the title's inspiration is that dialogue. Two, his new film "Patriot" has Mammootty and Mohanlal teaming up together to fight an evil system, just like they did in that film. No, it is not a remake of that film — it's not as pessimistic in terms of tone. But I do see "Patriot" as a sort of spiritual sibling.
What if Madhavan Kutty — Mammootty's firebrand senior journalist from "Vaartha" — was reimagined as an Edward Snowden-type scientific advisor-turned-whistleblower? Mammootty's Dr Daniel James (Mammootty), from "Patriot", is a defence expert with the guts to do what many journalists cannot in a post-2014 era. There are no flags of a certain colour to indicate that the villains of this film belong to a specific party, but judging by some of the lingo used by them, it's plainly evident who the film is referring to. But it also suggests that any corrupt man in power, regardless of party, is capable of misusing surveillance technology — not meant to keep tabs on civilians — that these individuals of ill repute have at their fingertips — to exploit and threaten.
Rajiv Menon and Fahadh Faasil play the bad politician-corporate villain as a father-son duo with a complicated history. Mahesh includes a neatly done flashback of an aerial rescue operation to give us a sense of the connection between them, Daniel and Kunchacko Boban's Michael Devassy, a pivotal character. As always, I'd rather not get into more story details.
Firstly, credit to Mahesh, who is also the co-editor, for making a three-hour film that doesn't feel boring. From beginning to end, he keeps "Patriot" moving nearly like a Jason Bourne thriller, shifting between characters behind the screens, inside screens, being followed, trying to evade capture, and situations filmed against land, air and water backdrops — all while maintaining a sleek aesthetic with cool tones.
"Patriot" is not designed primarily as a 'mass' entertainer and is not meant to be approached as such. It has more in common with the I.V. Sasi thriller I mentioned earlier, in terms of sensibilities. The characters aren't meant to be viewed as invincible superheroes. They fear for their lives, and they are deeply concerned about the possibility they may not get to tell the truth to the world before something terrible were to happen to them. A while back, I wondered whether a filmmaker today can make superstars like Mammootty and Mohanlal do what some of the big, daring filmmakers of the 1980s Malayalam cinema made them do before they became superstars. "Patriot" contains a particular writing choice that gave me that answer. However...
For all the visual sophistication, paranoia, intrigue and international scale the film brings to the table, it doesn't quite manage to get us to feel furious about its villains. I hate to bring up the example of the I.V. Sasi movie again here, but "Vaartha" — or even Joshiy's "New Delhi", another 1986 film where Mammootty played a journalist, the one that fetched him superstar status — managed to create the feeling that their lives were truly in danger and got us extremely furious at the evil characters. "Patriot" wants to be two films at the same time, the grounded I.V. Sasi-style thriller and a 'mass' entertainer that wants to create rousing superstar moments. Unfortunately, this doesn't blend harmoniously as one would hope.
Mohanlal gets the film's best fight sequence — a hospital situation involving a patient in a stretcher and a staircase could be a nod to the baby cradle moment in "The Untouchables". But this is not the case with all the action involving Mohanlal or Mammootty, Kunchacko Boban or Fahadh Faasil. You could say the senior actors' age is a limitation not just in the fight sequence but even in the dialogue delivery, but what about the younger ones? The fights, in most cases, are uninspired and repetitive. And one of them is predictable because the trailer already showed us the conclusion (next time, avoid this kind of marketing?). The same goes for the dialogues. The intensity is, unfortunately, missing. Like I said earlier, where's the rage? Where's the irritation and annoyance we felt at seeing a bad guy like the one, say, Prakash Varma played in "Thudarum"?
A day earlier, many of us went to see Dhanush's new film "Kara", also from a promising filmmaker with an impressive debut film, with high expectations. But, despite being technically superior, it served us contrived emotions unlike Vignesh Raja's "Por Thozhil" did. "Patriot" also suffers from the same shortcomings, although it's a relatively faster-paced film. However, when placed alongside Mahesh's debut film "Take Off", which was relatively smaller in terms of scale, “Patriot” feels short on vigour and tension, despite having Malayalam's two reigning superstars. And actors like Zarin Shihab, who is usually great in everything she does, feels so strangely out of place here: her character, Ayesha, comes across as one-dimensional, with a cyborg-like quality.
Even the characters given to Kunchacko Boban and Darshana Rajendran lack the necessary vitality; they feel like mere props to take the story forward. The most baffling casting choice is of Nayanthara. Couldn't the character have been played by someone else? It reminds me of some of the weak roles played by big stars in some of Christopher Nolan's films. You know that the actor is there for marketing purposes, not to make any significant contribution. Well, Nayanthara’s 'significant' contribution in this case is to make Mammootty's character look cool — which even Fahadh's character does — but the lacklustre writing works against everything.
Nayanthara even gets a scene reminiscent of a goosebump-inducing courtroom scene in "The Insider", Michael Mann's cinematic adaptation of a real-life whistleblower drama (and one of the best ever made); however, the similar scene in "Patriot" is so rushed that it feels like an extremely pale imitation. But this is almost the spirit of the film’s entire third act — an approach that makes one ask: Is that it?
Film: Patriot
Director: Mahesh Narayanan
Cast: Mammootty, Mohanlal, Kunchacko Boban, Fahadh Faasil, Rajiv Menon, Darshana Rajendran, Nayanthara, Zarin Shihab
Rating: 2.5/5
