Maradona Review: It has elements beyond a gangster story

Showing the audience what made a character change his mind for a valid reason is a tricky and difficult thing and that’s the key part of a movie that involves character transformation. Even when there are brittle areas in the script that needed a better molding, the new Tovino Thomas movie Maradona directed by Vishnu Narayan is a pleasing experience because of the way it has constructed characters.

Maradona, a goonda used by various people to threaten people is our hero. After one such task, he and his friend Sudhi get involved in a scenario at the end of which they became wanted for a politician. The politician has assigned a private team to find the two of them. An injured Maradona is in a hideout and Sudhi is in the run. How this idle phase waiting for the recovery of the wound changes Maradona is what the movie showing us.

You can’t feel any sort of empathy towards Maradona and director Vishnu Narayan is clear about that. And to establish that gives us an intro of the hero where he is clearly an unlikeable person. While keeping the hideout life of Maradona simple, the narrative gains momentum through the investigative track and the flashback. In the second half where the character’s mind starts to change, the initial ideas of the writer aren’t really moving. But as the movie progresses the events that happen towards the end has more depth and if you can take a minute to analyze things, you can kind of understand the reasons and needs for all that.

Tovino Thomas is indeed a promising talent and this time he has got a character that challenges him in a different way. We sort of witness three phases of Maradona and Tovino has done a flawless job in being true to the character. Sharanya R Nair is a promising talent indeed. Marshal Tito Wilson plays Sudhi in a different and convincing way. Chemban Vinod Jose adds life to his character in the movie with ease. Leona Lishoy, Jins Bhaskar, Kichu Tellus, Nisthar Sait and a few more are there in the cast.

Vishnu Narayan has given importance to the realness in treatment and subtleness in drama. He makes the first half of the movie as a mix of dark characters in a lighter premise. With the other tracks getting visited frequently, the movie sort of maintains the grip. The first few attempts at showing Maradona’s guilt weren’t completely convincing. But towards the end, the dialogues are spoken minimally and that phase had the quality to put the movie back in track and it also gave it an energy which will make the movie a subject to analyze. The Cinematography has done complete justice to the mood of the movie. And that along with crisp cuts, effective BGM, and blended songs makes it technically more solid.

Maradona has elements that are beyond a stylized gangster story. The fact that it shows us the entire arc of this character called Maradona gives it that uniqueness.