Naam movie review - a watchable campus flick

The new movie Naam directed by Joshy Thomas Pallickal is almost a remake of Happy Days. The movie that runs utilizing the nostalgia factor and campus life, has a message-driven conclusion inspired from a real-life incident. While the nostalgia and campus fun factors serve the purpose neatly, the routine nature of the movie after a point is a major drawback.

Naam is about the story of a bunch of students. We are shown how they ended up on that campus. How their friendship grew, how they bonded with seniors and college authorities. One of the members of this gang was a guy named Shyam who was an ardent fan of AR Rahman. Naam tells us the story of this friendship when Shyam met with a serious accident.

The abstract level packaging of this movie is really impressive. You have an elaborate cast and cameos from stars to boost the beat. The narrative, by the way, is quite flat. The order if things is much similar to what we have seen so far. The chemistry between the actors and the grace of the goodness filled characters does give the movie that likeability factor. When you try to contain an entire campus life into a 2-hour long movie, it's not an easy task to make it look convincing and that issue is there in Naam as well.

The cast of the movie isn't particularly getting a special attention. The screen time for most people here is equal. Rahul Madhav is in the role that can be looked at as a group leader and he was good at it. Saiju Kurup makes an impression as Masthan Sebastian. Shabareesh Varma, Abhishek Raveendran, Tony Luke, Niranj Suresh and Nobi play the roles of the friends and they were all fine. The ladies Mareena, Adithi and Gayatri were among the crowd. Ajay Mathew looked convincing as Shyam. Renji Panicker, Nandu, Pradeep Kottayam, Dinesh Prabhakar, Ponnamma Babu etc.are the other actors in the star cast.

Making a movie with the craft of a director is not really the intent here. Joshy is trying to package it as a wholesome entertainer. For that, the path he has chosen is not so genuinely fresh. Some of it has made the movie enjoyable while some of it doesn't really move you. The flat narrative gets a considerable boost from the performances of the actors. The cinematography was fine while the edits were all over the place. The music department of the film also was impressive.

The moments of fun and sentiments that have worked for the movie makes sure that the experience is not boring. The lack of freshness due to the typical structure of the story is a demerit to this movie.