Argentina Fans Kaattoorkadavu Review: a passable comedy

No matter how good or bad his movies are, Midhun Manuel Thomas is one director who makes sure that a fair enough giggle-worthy comedy is there in all his movies. His new movie Argentina Fans Kaattoorkadavu becomes a passable comedy with a brittle script mainly because of the ability of the filmmaker in him to create humor in scenes. The aimless screenplay that just doesn’t know how to merge narratives is perhaps the major demerit of this comedy.

Kaattoorakadavu is the village where our story is set in. The football frenzy village obviously has two gangs who are supporters of Brazil and Argentina. In the meantime, Vipinan and Meher are two close friends who have a romantic equation between them. The evolvement of this relationship is shown through the course of a couple of world cups in Argentina Fans Kaattoorkadavu.

If someone asks you what this movie is about, it will be tough for you to give a clear answer and that’s the biggest problem of this film. The two tracks in this movie, one that deals with the romance between Vipinan and Meher and the other that deals with the football rivalry aren’t merging in a smooth way. You will definitely laugh for the situation comedy and dialogue jokes this movie creates but what it lacks is an answer to the question, what it wants to communicate. And for the fans of these football teams, there are these theatrically exhilarating moments along with the comedy which makes it an okay film despite the weak screenplay.

Kalidas Jayaram is comfortable when he is kind of involved in making fun of someone. The actor has an inherent sense of humor and cute looks. But where he fails miserably is in being emotional. The same can be said about Aishwarya Lekshmi as well. She has this nice flow in being Meher. But when she tries to be intense on screen, there is a dramatic tone in her performance which sort of kills the realness the movie needs. Aneesh Gopal scores with his comedy after Theevandi. Arjun Ratan and Anu K Aniyan of Karikku are here and the only disappointment is that they don’t have enough space to perform. Casting director Abu Valayamkulam has found a lot of new and talented faces for various characters in this movie and in my opinion that is perhaps the biggest takeaway this movie offers. 

Midhun Manuel Thomas makes sure that almost every frame in the movie has some sort of comedy attached to it. Depending on the performers we have on screen, this strategy works in favor and against the film. The basic structure of the film is dependent on the love story between Vipinan and Meher. But because that is so ordinary cinematically, they decided to spice it up with some football rivalry and both tracks, unfortunately, didn’t blend well. Like I said many times in the review, the humor is never really eccentric. Football references, political references etc. makes the humor part of the movie quite enjoyable. Gopi Sundar’s tracks were nice. The cinematography was impressive while the edits sort of failed to contain the two tracks in the narrative.

Argentina Fans Kaattoorkadavu is definitely a passable comedy because of the abundance of humor in dialogues and situations. But as a story, the movie fails to be an engaging one and it is really hard for us to stay with the film once we come out of the theaters. It belongs to the - watch, laugh and forget- category of entertainers.