Antony Movie Review

Master craftsman Joshiy has brought back the same team of lead casts in Porinju Mariam Jose for his new action entertainer Antony. He has added Kalyani Priyadarshan to the mixture who is playing a meaty role in this film. The movie’s core plot revolves around an unlikely relationship between the characters played by Joju & Kalyani. The fate of the movie depends on how this relationship is perceived by the audience. Unfortunately, this part goes awry despite a few emotional sequences clicking.

Antony opens to an intense scene which establishes the character of Joju. Despite countless opportunities, the movie never gets the story right. They have pumped in numerous characters who gets to show their face on the screen with hardly any impact to the story. Despite establishing a larger-than-life character, the story never had the potential to throw in enough conflicts or tense moments to stretch it far enough till two and a half hours. The primary issue was with the weak antagonists who are in no way posing a threat to the protagonist. They have no contribution to the story despite some forced moments trying to bring them at odds with the protagonist. Though a few of them works, most of the episodes felt artificial and amateurish. The climax episode was mediocre and lacked any set up for a good action block to take place.

The movie also had an awful flashback segment which felt very outdated and staged. This was supposed to emotionally connect the audience with the storyline but in turn made the character clumsy. Had they used some subtle references or storytelling to establish the character, they could have saved 10 minutes of runtime. It is understandable that they are not narrating a unique story but the portrayal needed some intelligent writing and visually pleasing sequences to convince the audience. The performances were ordinary in the flashback portions and finally ends as a laughable episode.

Coming to the main premise, they fail to extract emotions out of the muddled relationship between the primary characters. The biggest letdown was that Joshiy used a scene that repeats frequently throughout the movie to establish this relationship. It seems like the director had no clue about adding moments enough to work out the chemistry between the pair. These scenes cannot be entirely written off as the action sequences and dialogues were engaging at parts and the commercial formula works to an extent. But it was unimaginative as a director to use repetitive scenes but instead allowed a solid clash to flare up naturally and finally develop a bond spontaneously. This would have strengthened the chemistry between the characters and further proceedings in the story.

Despite a few commercial elements clicking, the disoriented emotional premise made on a lacklustre screenplay spoils the experience.