Gold Review: Alphonse Puthren falters big time in his comeback

Gold Review: Alphonse Puthren falters big time in his comeback

Stars making a comeback after a hiatus and people celebrating it is a common thing in Indian cinema. But is not often that a filmmaker’s comeback is so eagerly awaited. Alphonse Puthren’s return, seven years after he made the sensational ‘Premam’, meant the expectations for his latest, ‘Gold’, were sky-high. On top of that, the director managed to pique the right amount of curiosity among those waiting for the film. Nothing about the plot was revealed, there were hardly any promo materials, even those part of the cast didn’t know much about the film. There was no reason for ‘Gold’ to fail. There’s Alphonse Puthren at the helm, there’s Prithviraj, there’s Nayanthara and a bandwagon of other stars. But yet…

‘Gold’ has Prithviraj playing Joshiy, a mobile shop owner, who lives with his mother. One fine day, Joshiy finds an abandoned vehicle in front of his house. In his own words it’s a ‘treasure’. How it reached there, who all are associated with it, what Joshiy does with it… is what the film is about. It’s a quirky storyline for a comedy film. It’s more in the space of Alphonse’s debut film ‘Neram’. He could have a blast with it. But, the film is unnecessarily stretched to an exhausting runtime of 165 minutes.

Baburaj, Shammy Thilakan, and Lalu Alex are the only others who does something noticeable. Nayanthara gets one of the weakest role of her career. It would be safe to call it an extended cameo. Sharafudheen, Vinay Forrt, Sharath Saxena, Chemban Vinod Jose, Soubin Shahir… so many actors come and go, but hardly anyone make an impression.

Most of what Alphonse has done in ‘Gold’ seems like an afterthought. It is evident that he has tried desperately hard to cover the shallowness in the film with his technical wizardry. They were fascinating in ‘Premam’, but not here, where it’s overdone. It was sad to see a filmmaker who made people watch his last film multiple times in theatre, failing to keep them engaged this time. If ‘Gold’ had a quality output and became a huge hit, all the credits would’ve gone to Alphonse, so it’s only ideal that the director takes the criticisms on him and delivers better the next time around.