A dysfunctional family of three men fight it out in a WWE-inspired story that has action and comedy and mass elements and just enough drama to hold it all together. The result is great fun. That’s the short take. A longer review follows, and it may contain spoilers.
Some movies like Kumbalangi Nights are built on plot and character. Some movies like Thallumala and RDX are built on mood and vibe. Adhvaith Nayar’s debut feature Chatha Pacha feels like it has taken a pinch – just a pinch – of plot from something like Kumbalangi Nights. It’s about a dysfunctional family of young men. And this barebones story is driven by a ton of mood and vibe and the kind of energy in WWE spectacles. The result is a textbook example of a recipe for how to make an entertaining movie. Take a bunch of likeable actors. Get Mujeeb Majeed to compose a kickass background score, and fly Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy down for their first Malayalam movie. Add some comedy with underdog characters and a loudmouth kid. Add some drama between brothers. Add some high-energy fight sequences. Add lots of colour and local flavour. Add a megastar cameo. Put into the edit machine and shake. And serve in theatres with a big crowd.
Chatha Pacha revolves around three men. A heavily bearded Arjun Ashokan plays Savio. A heavily sculpted Roshan Mathew plays Vetri. And Ishan Shoukath plays Little. As kids, they are entranced by WWE shows and enact those moves. A fight sequence outside a movie theatre is filmed like a big star-hero’s mass action scene – only, this one has kids doing the slo-mo moves. Little has an idea. Why not bring WWE to Kochi! And the way Little and Savio find a bunch of fighters is why we go to a certain kind of Malayalam movie these days. The fighters look like losers. Savio is sceptical. But Little is listening to some rousing music on his earphones. He passes an earbud to Savio. The mood is created, and these losers look like winners. Suddenly, there’s an audience. There’s fireworks. A mad dream becomes a mad visual. It’s a delightful stretch in a film filled with delightful stretches.
Soon, WWE is underway in Mattancherry. A venue is built with the help of funds from a friendly neighbour, but the real source of these funds lies somewhere else. These little bits go a long way in elevating a minor story. There’s a picture of a woman that hangs on a wall. This is not the kind of movie that’s going to waste time on a big emotional flashback with her. A few visuals are enough. And even with this minimal background, the actors and the characters they play register strongly. Arjun and Ishan are rock-solid. Roshan gets to play a unique mix of aggression and vulnerability, and it’s one of his finest performances. A smirking Vishak Nair is excellent as the villain of the piece, though he’s often upstaged by his shiny, colourful costumes. And the supporting actors chip in consistently, both in the dramatic scenes and in the funny ones like when a shy man woos a girl without realising that a competitor is standing right behind him.
The drama picks up with the massy arrival of Vetri. But it’s not allowed to get too intense or complex, thankfully – and it all feeds back into the WWE situations shot with WWE-style and WWE-energy by cinematographer Anend C Chandran. When the Vishak Nair character announces a fight between two men standing on either side, the camera moves with him, right to left, positioning his dominance as the instigator. Before the very first fight, the super-charged emcee screams to the crowd: “Who is ready for Friday Fight Night!” A very local onlooker looks at the person next to him and asks, “English aa?” It’s a funny situation, sure, but no, these films are not “English”. These films might be inspired by Western cinema in the way they walk and talk. But the soul is entirely local. It’s not just that the fighters come with names like Nitro Kili and Bhasmasuran. That’s just fun, quirky stuff. It’s also the innate understanding of how to stage comedy and mass and drama, all within a little over two hours. By the end, we’re left with the exhilaration of watching a rousing WWE exhibition as well as a joyous movie.
