Keshu Ee Veedinte Nadhan Movie Review: The Film Is As Much Fun As A Day Spent In The Passport Office

Director: Nadir Shah
Cast: Dileep, Urvashi, Jaffer Idukki, Ganapathi, Anusree
Language: Malayalam

Somewhere inside the glorious mess that is Keshu Ee Veedinte Nadhan is a half-decent idea that could have made for a watchable comedy. But director Nadir Shah seems to be brimming with so many more concepts that he wants to throw all of them at us hoping at least a few sticks. The idea for Dileep's character Keshu seems to be one he thought would surely stick. Keshu is a miser and a patriarch and he's meant to be the kind of person we would love to hate. He's also controlling, obnoxious and filled with so many peculiarities that it could have worked if used in moderation. But expecting subtlety from Nadir Shah is like expecting feminism from Omar Lulu. 

Take a look at the way the film registers Keshu's carelessness. It's a trait that has some bearing on the plot so it's important we hold on to this information. So we get a scene where Keshu walks out of the bathroom half-naked to receive a phone call. But the gag is stretched so far that he's made to walk out into his bedroom, then onto the corridor, out of the hotel, into the streets and then to another part of town, all with soap splattered all over his body, to make the joke land. 

The movie does this again when several characters are required to look for a missing lottery ticket. At one point, paper planes need to be made to help with this search and in all fairness, this absurd side-plot could have led to a little laughter. But this "joke" snowballs into a long five-minute sequence that makes absolutely no point at the end. It's like the makers never know when to stop, choosing instead to overdo everything until the jokes hurt both the eyes and ears. 

But it's not just the film's detours to accommodate these sketch-like inserts, it's also that the film never really had anywhere to go. For half an hour, it operates in the zone of a comedy like Midhunam with the whole dysfunctional joint family going on a road trip. But then it wants to be a bit of Malamaal Weekly too with a dash of Raapakal and a hint of Sandeshan until it culminates in one big jug of Balettan, with a little bit of Valsalyam for taste. 

The film thinks it's being very clever by introducing a character to double-guess the audience but we've already gotten there hours before he does. The feeling of déjà vu extends to Dileep's performance too when you see traces of both Kunjikunan and Chandupottu in the way he's created Keshu. It's also a bit rich when it starts lecturing us about neglecting the elderly when the script itself has neglected the character of Keshu's mother through most of its runtime. With entire strands just abandoned without any resolution or purpose, Keshu Ee Veedinte Nadhan is a painful way to spend the last day of the year.