A juicy idea about a supernatural ability
The ability to foresee future events is exclusive to a chosen few, those that possess a mystical power. So, what happens when that power suddenly comes into the grasp of an ordinary, everyday person? And what if those future events were terrible life-altering moments for his own loved ones? Can he use this uniquely perceptive ability to overcome them before it is too late?
This juicy premise forms the plot of director Nishanth Sattu’s A Ranjith Cinema. The supernatural capability rests with the protagonist Ranjith (Asif Ali). Living with his mother in an apartment, Ranjith leads a modest life. He makes candid camera moments that air on the local channels and nurses dreams of becoming a film director someday. Seemingly tangential to his otherwise uneventful life, there is an accident, a corruption scandal, and a murder that are either happening or waiting to happen. How these events tie into Ranjith’s life and whether he can solve them with his newfound ability form the rest of the plot.
Ambitious plot structure succumbs to poor execution
The movie-within-the-movie conceit – one that references itself and its characters – is an ambitious plot structure. We have seen it being very fulfilling when it works, like in Spike Jonze’s superb 2002 movie Adaptation, which narrates the story of a filmmaker struggling with the screenplay for a movie. But when it fails, it makes for some awful viewing, as seen here in several stretches of A Ranjith Cinema.
The aspiring movie maker that he is, Ranjith is always seen with a cheesy camcorder, as though he were making home videos all the time. Did the audience need constant reinforcement of Ranjith’s career aspirations with such irrelevant and ridiculous staging? The convenient appearance and disappearance of a “gang” looking to pounce on Ranjith at multiple points in the movie is a constant annoyance, while the lack of depth in any of the principal characters keeps us at a distance from empathizing with any of them. And whoever thought it was difficult to get a producer to finance a movie must take a crash course from Ranjith, who gets a hefty cash advance from a producer after narrating an unflattering script.
With glaring, and at times, laughable flaws, A Ranjith Cinema is disappointing fare.
Thrills and comic interludes better suited to candid camera moments
To give Nishanth Sattu some credit, the film is not without its moments – we couldn’t have asked for a more thrilling start to the movie than the failed bank robbery, while the killing of a groom halfway through the movie shocks us to no end until we learn of the motive. The fate of a stranger being handed a suspicious duffel bag is both thrilling and comical, while a surprise party in the middle of the night couldn’t have been planned in a better way. Maybe Nishant Sattu’s style is better suited for a collage of candid camera moments. That may have been a more compelling watch than A Ranjith Cinema.
A RANJITH CINEMA Official Trailer | Asif Ali | Saiju Kurup | Anson |Namitha |Nishad |Nishanth Sattu
