Saturday Night Movie Review: While Humour has been a part of some of his films like Udayananu Thaaram and Ividam Swargamanu, Saturday Night is touted as the first time Rosshan Andrews is making a comedy entertainer. With Nivin Pauly on board along with his regular partner-in-crime Aju Varghese, I was curious how Rosshan – a filmmaker whose works I have enjoyed save for a certain err… Casanova, sorry Confident Casanova – would handle Pauly’s brand of comedy that we saw in popular hits like Thattathin Marayathu and Premam. Saturday Night Review: Nivin Pauly – Rosshan Andrrews’ Film Fails to Leave an Impressive Mark on the Audience.
Saturday Night, however, is nothing like any of Nivin Pauly’s earlier buddy comedies. The theme is familiar, yes. A bunch of estranged friends are brought together by certain events and one of them still holding on to the glorious past, is something we have seen in quite a few movies. What differs here is the treatment, and what suffers here, that Saturday Night barely manages to make us laugh, nor leave any kind of an impression.
Stanley (Nivin Pauly), ‘Poocha’ Sunil (Aju Varghese), Ajith (Siju Wilson) and Justin (Saiju Kurup) live in Mysuru and have been best friends since school. However, when we meet them first, the juice is running out of their friendship, especially due to an ego clash between Ajith and Justin. Stanley is the glue of the group, always putting his friends ahead of him and who keeps insisting on a WTF (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) vacation that ends on Saturday night. A certain incident puts a complete spanner to his plans and in this buddy group, and they go their separate ways.
Eight years later, Justin is working in Saudi Arabia, where he once again meets Sunil. However, Sunil’s arrival (and later disappearance) brings further trouble for Sunil with the Saudi Arabian police and his workplace. He needs to bring in Sunil from Mysuru to get his job back. Back at his old place, he blackmails Ajith into helping him and then seeks out Stanley to figure out where Sunil is. But Justin and Ajith find out that Stanley has, in Justin’s words, ‘flipped’ and he is still stuck in the past.
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The kind of themes that Saturday Night brings in its screenplay are something we have loved and adored in movies like Dil Chahta Hai, Rithu, Malarvadi Arts Club (Nivin and Aju’s debut), Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara et al. With the kind of cast the movie has, especially led by a showy Nivin Pauly, and the storyline, along with Rosshan Andrews’ execution, Saturday Night should have been a winner. So where did it all go wrong?
For one, as a supposed comedy entertainer, I could hardly laugh with the movie. There were a couple of scenes where I chuckled here and there, but the movie struggles to regale us into amusement, despite having actors who have established comic timing. Without the comedy working in most places, the film begins to drag right from the first half.
Secondly, Saturday Night also falters as a friendship film. The reason why the aforementioned movies, and even some of Nivin’s other films like Premam and even Bangalore Days worked, is because we cared for the bonhomie, even when the friends are estranged.
Not the case here.
Hardly any of the lead characters come across as worth rooting for, and their friendship feels shallow even when then finally bond in the third act. And this has nothing to do with the film already presenting them as estranged.
Take ZNMD for example, when we meet the three friends together for the first time, their friendship might be there, but it is a pale shadow of what used to be before (which is never shown to us visually). Over the course of the film, they reconnect and bring their friendship back to the old days, and we connect with their journey all throughout.
Saturday Night attempts something similar, but lacks the spark that should have attracted us to this camaraderie (or lack of it) in the first place, more so because none of the friends feel likeable enough. Especially Sunil, whose ‘injustice’ is something Stanley is trying to correct the hardest and who is presented as a ‘victim’. But from what we see of the character, he comes across as an idiot who intrudes in his friends’ lives and expects them to bear his idiosyncrasies.
It even tries to explore how middle-age, along with work and family pressures, are making us lose out on fun and enjoyment that friendships bring along, but again the result feels half-hearted.
The mildly interesting plot element in Saturday Night is with regards to what is going on with Stanley. There is a twinge of intrigue about his eccentricity and his way of speaking, throwing accented English words, and body language and wardrobe pique curiosity, before they wore off soon when the screenplay does circles with his character. Nivin Pauly does a decent job with the role, though when shown as a pilot, he felt a miscast there. Nivin Pauly Birthday Special: 15 Memorable Movie Moments of the Actor That Endeared Him to Malayalam Cinema Lovers!
But through Stanley’s way of looking at life without inhibitions, it allows the director to add a touch of surrealism. Though we have to disregard the fact that Stanley comes from a privileged upbringing which allows him to be so, a boon not everyone can seek out.
However, even that touch of surrealism becomes farcical when his two friends, realising their folly towards him, try to act like him and the film takes a further nosedive from thereon.
All the actors do okay in their roles, though we have seen them in better parts and performances. This is the second time in the past one month, after Theerpu, where Saiju is shown playing the son of a priest. who is in heavy debts, under the control of his beloved and gets insulted by debtors. Grace Antony and Saniya Iyappan are stuck in characters marred by limited screentime but they manage to leave a bit impact in the boys’ game. Especially Grace, who is having an absolute ball of a time when it comes to her movies.
Final Thoughts
Saturday Night, thankfully, isn’t a Casanova-kinda disaster, and yet it is definitely one of Rosshan Andrrews’ weakest films. The movie struggles at making you laugh and about making you care for the characters, and instead of ‘Saturday Night Fever’, all you can manage to get is a bad case of cold.
(The above story first appeared on Today News 24 on Nov 04, 2022 06:42 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website todaynews24.top).