Review: Raghuvinte Swantham Rasiya is a bad film

Paresh C Palicha says Raghuvinte Swantham Rasiya pulls Malayalam cinema to a new low. Post YOUR reviews here!

Director Vinayan has been defying everything from crippling unionism to the star system in Malayalam cinema. But he has failed to provide any alternative to give confidence to the people backing him.

Agreed that being a lone warrior takes its toll on creativity or even the resources at your disposal but that should not be used as an excuse to dish out something that is substandard or outright bad.

Vinayan's new offering is Raghuvinte Swantham Rasiya, an inter-religious love story with everything topical from terrorism to the fake currency racket in it. Murali Krishna and Meghna Raj make their debuts in the film.

The story begins in Vinayan's favourite location -- a beggar's colony, where people are busy settling accounts. A mentally unstable woman, cringing for food and even snatching it from others, creates a ruckus. After a few violent outbursts, we know that the police have picked her up.

Parallel to this, we have Bhagavathar played by Thilakan, who ekes out a living by repairing footwear and umbrellas on the roadside and even sings to supplement his income. We are provided a sketch of Bhagavather, who has now been labelled as a terror suspect. In his good days, he was a renowned theatre artiste who had even taken part in Quit India Movement as a teenager.

The screenplay is in tangles when both threads meet and weave into a tacky and predictable flashback. The mentally unstable female is Rasiya (Meghna Raj) and the granddaughter of a rich freedom fighter (Charuhasan) and Bhagavather is a close friend of the old man.

Bhagavather's family (which incidentally includes his grandson Raghu) lives on the favours doled out by Rasiya's family. No prizes for guessing that Raghu (Murali Krishna) and Rasiya are romantically involved and people in between play spoilsport.

Vinayan gets preachy about how young people are getting involved in terror activities due to the lure of money. He even uses digital imaging to show his love birds prancing around the seven wonders of the world.

It would be nothing short of injustice to the actors if we go on to dissect work with the material that they are given to handle. The only thing that comes to notice is that Maghna Raj looks like the poor man's Nayantara.

In final analysis, it can be said that with Raghuvinte Swantham Rasiya, Vinayan has pulled Malayalam cinema to a new low.