7th Day (2014)

You won't be disappointed!

Wonderful character development!

A lot of fun.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

A 7th Day of the newcomer Shyamdar develops through a group of five youngsters in a seven-day start from Christmas. As the 7th day after God created the earth by creating the earth for six days, the seventh day of the seventh day, the story of the 7th Day of Akhil Paul's writings is complete. The success of the film is where the shots are shocked. However, it can not be said of a monotonous or unbelievable. In the last minute this tip is over.

2014 has been a relatively good year for Malayalam Cinema with a couple of absolute gems, namely 1983 & Neram, and so when I ran a google check for the 10 best Malayalam movies of 2014, 7th day was one of the movies that popped up on a few lists. So it was with a bit of anticipation that I started watching this so called thriller. Prithviraj is a relatively good actor to be honest. He could be better if he wipes that smirk off his face. The movie is as disappointing as they come. You can spot the suspense from a mile away.Its time the movie industry stopped milking, The Usual Suspects. Why is it so necessary that every group of friends should include one fat obnoxious guy ? Is this an unwritten rule in Cinema ? And what is with Malayalam Cinema and foreign sounding names. The bloke's name is Christopher Moriarty for crying out loud. When did the Spaniards come to India ? Good thing they did not decide to go with Morientes. Another bloke is named Ebenezer. What next, Eliaquim Mangala ? What happened to the good old names like John & Matthew. Most of the support cast in the movie cannot act and so they try to compensate for their lack of acting skills with their eyes. Its just one amazing eye expression after another. Badly written. Badly acted. Badly shot though some of the locales look magnificent. Prithviraj is probably the only redeeming factor about the movie. Definitely not recommended.I might have to watch Neram again to get this movie out of my head.

I had high hopes for the film, considering all the hype the first trailer created and the fact that it was a Prithviraj film. I was utterly disappointed.I simply had to write this review to let everyone know how highly overrated 7th Day is. A story that could've made a blockbuster was destroyed by terrible writing and poor execution. And to top all that, naming the antagonist Moriarty. Why would they drag an iconic character's name into what could be one of the most boring thrillers in Malayalam Cinema? I mean, what was the writer trying to accomplish by using the name 'Moriarty'?The supporting cast including Vinay Forrt, Anu Mohan and Tovino Thomas gave their career worst performances. Their bad acting only made the already under-written characters even more unwatchable. It was sad to see such good talents put to waste. Janani Iyer could very well be the Kirsten Stewart of Malayalam Cinema. No expression on that face, whatsoever!The screenplay was pathetic and dragged on for more than two hours. Scenes that could've been compelling were blown to bits by over the top style and clichéd dialogues. Take for example an important scene where four characters are in the middle of a conversation on top of a cliff. After each dialogue, the camera has to zoom in on each characters face, followed by panoramic shots from various angles. A conversation that could've taken about three minutes was stretched to a whopping fifteen minutes!The plot was plain stupid and the non-linear narrative was so bad that it lost it's way in the first half itself. The twists were clichéd and the climax was obvious.It still makes one wonder why Prithviraj, an incredible actor who gave us brilliant performances in yesteryear's 'Mumbai Police', 'Celluloid' and 'Memories', would even consider a part in what could be one of the worst thrillers of the year. Nonetheless, Prithivraj gave a convincing performance and remains the only saving grace of the film.Final Verdict: 7th Day is a fine example of how flawed writing and terrible acting can put an entire genre to shame. Watch it if you're a huge fan of Prithviraj, but don't expect to be overwhelmed.

This came up on my radar a couple of weeks previously, and I've been rewarded with some fantastic Malayalam movies this year, so my expectations from this one, esp. reading the social media sound-bites from the main protagonist, where he indicated that having a trailer out for this one might do the suspense element in the movie a dis-service. This works much like 'Vantage Point' or '11:14' did, if you've seen those already. However, it is a piece of original work, though if it had been narrated in a straight- forward manner, there would have been nothing special about it. So, being original, it still doesn't have much meat, IMO.The technical values are all good, though a few musical numbers could've been done without. The cinematography is above-average, as are the production and art design aspects. The editing, as befits a movie with this kind of narrative, ably supports the story-telling. The performances are definitely above-average. The guy who gave a great performance as Nivin Pauly's character's harried dad in '1983' has one scene, quite strong. The leading lady of 'Thegidi' plays a key character in this one too, and her make-up here is not as distracting as it was in that one (but anyone could've played the role she plays). Nivin Pauly's character's mom from 'Ohm Shanthi Oshaana' also has 2-3 scenes, but nothing substantial.The makers leave a lot of red herrings leading to the final denouement, including a couple of holes when you analyze the entire work in greater detail, but the movie doesn't suffer from those as those in genre would.Some critics have been cribbing about the dialoguing that goes on every few sequences, but I felt that they had been purposefully placed, and I was happy that they were, considering everything that they cumulatively lead up to. Nice way to place a mainstream dumbing-down technique to make one's point, and having that fulfill the purpose of pulling wool over the audience's eyes.One more thing on the score - when the movie starts out, it starts strong, very strong. And supported ably by the sound design too. However, after the 20 minute mark, it starts sounding like every other commercial potboiler, and subtlety takes a long, long hike, never to return, ending in cacophonous themes throughout. This is completely the opposite of the approach in another recent release, '1983', which started off bad (from the perspective of score), and settled into something simpler/subtle. That kinda detracted from the overall experience as well.Verdict: Definitely better than your run-of-the-mill mainstream feature, and though you don't need to trek up to the cinema to watch it, it deserves a viewing nonetheless.