Marakkar: Arabikadalinte Simham review – Nothing epic about this Mohanlal film

Priyadarshan’s highly anticipated period epic Marakkar: Arabikadalinte Simham (2021) is a refreshing departure from the kind of films the filmmaker has been known for over the years. It attempts to tell the heroic story of the fearless Kunjali Marakkar IV, admiral of the fleet of the king of Cochin, who played a key role in the war against the Portuguese.

The film is ambitious on all counts, but it lacks the kind of writing, or even moments, that set apart, say, a film like Baahubali (2015). Relying on predictable scenes and bland drama, the big-budget Marakkar never lives up to the hype generated by its promos and ends up as a tiresome, underwhelming film in which the majority of the actors (in their fifties) struggle to make one action sequence leave you awestruck.

Mohanlal plays Muhammed Ali alias Kunjali Marakkar. He belongs to the royal Marakkar clan. The Marakkars dedicated their life to fight the Portuguese invasion of Cochin state and Kunjali is the last in the line who spends most of his life as a pirate after his entire family, including his mother, is killed right in front of his eyes by the Portuguese.

Kunjali vows to take revenge and sort of becomes a messiah of the poor. He robs from the rich and distributes the loot among the needy. The Portuguese plan to take over the kingdom of Cochin by waging a war and the only person who can stop them is Kunjali, who is widely popular for his battle tactics at sea. When Kunjali decides to join hands with the king of Cochin, little does he imagine that he will have to pay a big price.

Marakkar, apart from the lazy writing, lacks the wow factor that makes films of this scale memorable. There isn’t a single scene in the movie that makes you sit up in your seat and stare in amazement. Except for the two action sequences, which are just okay, it feels like a chore to sit through the rest of the film which feels bloated with a runtime of three hours.

The action sequences were hyped as one of the highlights of the movie, but it is so boring to watch most of the actors struggle to pull the scenes off. Priyadarshan fills the film with so many characters that you spend most of the time trying to remember who plays whom.

Keerthy Suresh and Manju Warrier don’t get the kind of roles they deserve. It is disappointing to see Warrier reduced to just a few scenes. Then there are Suniel Shetty and Arjun Sarja, two of the fittest actors in the country today, but they are not used effectively in the action scenes. Pranav Mohanal plays the younger version of his father and he owns the initial 20-odd minutes of the movie with his charming screen presence.

There is a lot of conflict between the key characters, but, sadly, you don’t feel it in the scenes. You sense that one character doesn’t wish the other well, but the writing makes these scenes so lifeless.

Even the ever-reliable Mohanlal struggles to keep the film afloat as he is hardly convincing in the crucial emotional scenes. It is as if he were least interested in embracing the character of Marakkar, which could have been written and handled better.

It does make one wonder as one leaves the cinema hall what was so deserving about the movie that it was presented with a National award.