Comrade in America aka CIA review : An Amal Neerad movie with no Amal Neerad elements in it !

“How far will you go for love” : the Amal Neerad-Dulquer Salmaan movie CIA aka Comrade in America has hit theaters today with this tagline. As the tagline portrays the movie is filled with a journey of a person who is in search of his love.

Aji Mathew (Dulquer Salmaan) is both a college student filled with communist idealisms in mind and a social worker in his locality. Siddique who plays the role of Aji’s father is a Congress party follower. The movie on whole narrates the story of Aji’s uninformed journey to America to find his love who had gone without leaving a message.

Amal Neerad has made the movie with pinches of filmy elements taken from Dulquer’s previous Neelakasham Pachakadal Chuvanna Bhoomi. But to be frank, this one has failed to give that specific feel that NPCB had given. The film flows nowhere with a loosely built story line and script. The flick does not comprise any visual quality or action sequences seen in the usual Amal Neerad movies. Though there were action sequences somewhere throughout the flick those were just cooked up and stood below Amal Neerad’s level.

The intro scene of Dulquer and BGM copied from Romain Gavras’s No Church in the Wild has given a mass feel to cinema but it is quite evident that the director has failed to sustain it.

Another disappointing factor was the cinematography. The camera works possessed in Amal Neerad movies were always top notch, but not in this one. The editing department were irresistible at some parts. The unwanted jump cuts used by the editor gave the audience a boring feel. Though Gopi Sundar as always kept up his tracks in balance the background scores at times made the audience terribly upset.

Dulquer is an actor whose stardom keeps increasing after each release. He has as usual succeeded in taking the audience in hand with his vocal prowess and screen presence. His father played by Siddique has also done a fine act throughout. Siddique had put in comedy, seriousness and mass through his role. The heroine Karthika Muraleedharan had nothing to do much in particular. Chandini Sreedharan who played the second heroine had also put up a good work. As usual Soubin Shahir and Dileesh Pothen had given a mesmerizing performance to the humorous roles assigned to them. Even the smallest of their ticklers were appreciated a lot.

The movie had failed to sustain the good momentum put up in the first half. At times the viewer gets a feeling that the movie had a communist touch just for it’s publicity.The storyline would have strived forward even if Dulquer was not a comrade.

In short, Comrade in America is a flick which is not up to the Amal Neerad movies mark. A film specially built in for the lovers of Dulquer Salmaan’s screen presence and mass.