‘Mei Hoom Moosa’ movie review: Lacklustre treatment of a decent subject

Despite the potent theme, the film’s attempts at forcefully eliciting chuckles and the jarring tonal changes it ends up creating make it a tiring experience

Getting the genre right is as important as arriving at a great subject for a movie. Not every subject can be forced-fit into any genre, as is being done in Mei Hoom Moosa. A person listening to a one-line theme of the movie might naturally assume it to be a serious drama that would bring out the struggles of a man who is assumed to be dead, to prove to the world that he is indeed alive. What we get instead is a shoddy attempt at making a comedy movie.

Of course, with the right script, quite a lot of humour could be drawn out of this man’s situation. Unfortunately, one of the weakest links of the movie is such attempts at creating some laughs. Jibu Jacob’s has at its centre Lance Naik Muhammed Moosa (Suresh Gopi), a soldier who everyone assumes to have died in the Kargil war at the border. When he returns home after spending nineteen years in a Pakistani jail, the villagers are caught between disbelief and genuine happiness at his unexpected return. His family members are not exactly happy at the way things have turned out, having moved on with their lives after the initial shock.

Jibu Jacob who debuted with the enjoyable political satire ‘ Vellimoonga’ has since then been serving up one disappointing fare after another. Mei Hoom Moosa, scripted by Rubesh Rain, does not manage to reverse that trend, despite having a decent theme to bank on. The discordant notes, arising out of the sudden shifts from serious drama to forced humour, can be heard right from the beginning. In one such scene, Moosa, who is finding it hard to adjust to the changed world, asks his friend Thami (Hareesh Kanaran), “Is there a book inside this?”, while talking about accessing Facebook from his phone. Infact, most of Hareesh’s typical brand of humour falls flat in this movie.

Sly attempts are also made in the script to paint one section of a particular community as unpatriotic while projecting another section as ideal Indians. Such scenes too come wrapped in humour. Partly due to the treatment of the subject, Moosa’s plight really does not manage to move us at any point. Most of the characters as well as the parts supposed to convey Moosa’s relationship with his family members are also sloppily written.

The movie is also not very sure of how to treat the character of Moosa’s brother Meeran (Saiju Kurup), who at some points is shown as a conniving man planning to kick out his brother, while at the same time seems to be holding a lot of love and respect for him. But, Moosa’s wife Paathu (Poonam Bajwa) walks away with the honour of the most unimaginatively written character of the whole lot. Another side track about his daughter and her lover, which also includes one of the many misplaced songs, is also ended unconvincingly.

Having a great subject at hand might seem a sure-shot way to an interesting movie. Mei Hoom Moosa proves that this necessarily need not be the case always, with its tiring, lacklustre treatment.

Mei Hoom Moosa is running in theatres