Star-struck amidst a new wave of Malayalam cinema
The Hindu
The pandering to fans is holding thespians Mammootty and Mohanlal back from letting themselves explore uncharted territories as they once used to do
Towards the fag end of the first day of December last year, theatres across Kerala and metro cities outside the State witnessed long winding queues of Mohanlal fans. The Malayalam film industry was just beginning to recover from a lull, induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the release of ‘Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea’, one of the costliest movies ever in the industry, was expected to give it a push. The crowd, mostly men, were all there for the special midnight show exclusively for the superstar’s fans.For all the midnight frenzy, which was preceded by days of never-before-seen marketing blitz, the next day was marked by mostly silence and stray expressions of disappointment from the die-hard fans; the film was much below their expectations. For the fans of Mammootty too, the recent years have been marked by much pre-release hype, like in the case of ‘One’ last year, only to be followed by disappointment. In the past two decades, the number of films of either superstar, which have either garnered critical acclaim or have scored high in the box office pale in comparison to the number of duds.