alone 2023 malayalam movie review

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Home » Reviews » Malayalam Movie Reviews

Alone Movie Review: How Did Someone Convince Mohanlal To Join This Circus Of A Film Is The Real Mystery

One can only observe that mohanlal is busy discovering the rock bottom as he continues to give his worst with alone.

Star Cast: Mohanlal.

Director: Shaji Kailas.

What’s Good: A crisp runtime that makes one suffer less.

What’s Bad: The idea in itself. The confusion about what to focus on. Mohanlal’s conviction to make this work.

Loo Break: Stay in there and watch some reels maybe.

Watch or Not?: There is no other polite way to say this, but don’t. Never thought I would say this for a Mohanlal movie.

Language: Malayalam (with subtitles)

Available on: disney+ Hotstar.

Runtime: 122 Minutes.

Amidst the pandemic, a man named Kalidas (Mohanlal) with his fancy mask moves into a new apartment in a very posh high-rise building. Soon he begins to observe some supernatural elements around him and he gets on the job to find out what it is. A murder mystery is unraveled leading to one of the most problematic climaxes ever.

Alone Movie Review: Script Analysis

The pandemic and what followed is a classic setup for filmmakers to write and make movies on. Some have even tried their hands and managed to churn out good stories. The most recent half-baked attempt starring Nayanthara was Connect . But if you thought that half-baked attempt and the rock bottom is close enough, let me show you Mohanlal unfortunately exploring the deeper rock bottom with a movie that rarely qualifies as anything but a script like some drunk person wrote all the blurry mixed idea on a piece of paper he found at the bar.

Alone as the name suggests as just one actor acts all the time and God somebody save Mohanlal, please. The movie opens like it is the smartest of them all. A man with too many colourful t-shirts and obsessed with liquor enters a posh society. The logic leaves the building the very minute he enters a room numbered 13A and he is surprised that it is ghosted. It had to be sir! Now there is a pandemic ongoing and one must look at the idea of only keeping Mohanlal in frame and making every character a voice speaking over calls or from behind doors or as ghost in the void. Alone never even tries to bring in some substance because it is so invested in telling a story that is boring and bizarre.

Screenplay written by Rajesh Jayaraman, Alone is the funniest mystery movie you will see because there is a man who is jumping and walking like an animated character bending every system possible talking like a cult leader wearing beach t-shirts. He enjoys when he hears someone break somebody’s bones and says ‘good job’. What is this even? Also, the aforementioned ghost has no say in the entire case only to realise that their existence was questionable extent. The end twist is so done to death that you can literally ignore the climax. But the biggest question is where is the consequence to a man with so big criminal instinct? He drives his Batmobile looking car into a vibrant oblivion like he has fans for doing that. No one can decode what this movie is.

Alone Movie Review: Star Performance

Mohanlal is busy giving us one after the other worst performances and this is the limit now. The actor was definitely forced to do this because there is no other explanation to what he does. Everything about this character looks so forced that he is not believable for even a minute.

Alone Movie Review: Direction, Music

My mind refuses to believe that Mohanlal and Shaji Kailas together have given us Narasimham. How can a pairing so successful go so abysmally wrong?

Add to that a super loud background score and a badly shaky cinematography that is attempting to look like a very edgy aspect. Everybody needs to run away from taking credits in this bowl.

Alone Movie Review: The Last Word

One can only observe that Mohanlal is busy discovering the rock bottom as he continues to give his worst with Alone. You have much better options and this is not one of them. You can skip it.

Alone Trailer

Alone releases on 26 January, 2023.

Share with us your experience of watching Alone.

For more recommendations, read our Kaapa Movie Review here.

Must Read: Dhamaka Movie Review: Ravi Teja Starrer Is Far Away From Logic & Farther From Entertaining

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'Alone' movie review: A daring experiment that becomes a tiring experience

The pandemic and the subsequent lockdown continue to be a source of never-ending stories that range from romance to supernatural thrillers. It has also proven to be a fertile setting for novel experiments. Alone is one such attempt—a single-actor film set largely in one location. It’s in stark contrast to the Mohanlal-Shaji Kailas duo’s usual larger-than-life mass entertainers that celebrate the superstar, his mundu swag, and the iconic meesha piri. In Alone, not once does Mohanlal wear a mundu nor does he twirl his moustache, but that doesn’t mean this film is short of gimmicks. In fact, it has a lot...

The narrative begins with Mohanlal’s character Kalidasan reaching an apartment complex in Kochi during the lockdown. After encountering some strange incidents in his flat, he starts unraveling a lot of mysteries. But all of this is before the final twist, which has become a routine in most Mohanlal films of late. However, his uninspired performance worsens things. There is a shade of eccentricity to his character, and it should have been a cakewalk for someone who aced similar roles in films like Ayal Kadha Ezhuthukayanu (1998) and Thalavattom (1986), but all we get to see is a pale shadow of his old self. At times, his mannerisms reminded me of the dismal Alexander the Great (2010), which arguably had one of his weakest performances to date.

Alone also has voice-acting by popular actors like Prithviraj Sukumaran, Manju Warrier, Annie, Rachana Narayanankutty, and Nandu among others. Among them, Prithviraj’s Hari Bhai is the best-written character and it is enhanced by the actor’s delightful rendering of the Thironthoram slang, which sounds way better than what he did recently in Kaapa. In an ordinary film without any such experiments, the Kalidasan-Hari Bhai portions would have been thoroughly enjoyable.

Alone is somewhat similar to Jayasurya’s 2021 film Sunny in terms of how they both are single-actor films set during the pandemic. However, what distinguishes Sunny from Alone is the former’s superior technical quality. The film is ruined with tacky visuals and shoddy VFX, which is probably because the film was originally planned as a direct OTT release. The strange camera angles and sound design intended to invoke jump scares and a sense of spookiness hardly create any impact. Rajesh Jayaraman’s script has a supernatural angle to it, but it seems like the makers tried too hard to make it look like one.

Right from the intro sequence Shaji Kailas has employed all his trademark gimmicks—the zigzag camera movements, flashy cuts, and the unnecessarily deafening background score—resulting in a headache-inducing experience. In a couple of scenes in Alone, Mohanlal is seen wearing a T-shirt that screams the word ‘vintage’. But sadly, this film doesn’t even have a glimpse of the good old vintage Mohanlal or Shaji Kailas. To put it bluntly, it’s an experiment gone terribly wrong.

Film: Alone Director: Shaji Kailas Cast: Mohanlal, Prithviraj Sukumaran (voice), Manju Warrier (voice) Rating: 1.5/5

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Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Shaji Kailas

Prithviraj Sukumaran

Manju Warrier

Rajesh Jayaraman

Screenwriter

Antony Perumbavoor