Crazy Gopalan

Cast: Dileep, Radha Varma, Jagathy, Biju Menon, SalimKumar, Harisree Asokan, Janardhanan
Director: Deepu Karunakaran

Crazy Gopalan is a loose-fitting, muddled, excessively fretful comedy that desperately strives to have you in splits and yet manages to make almost no sense. Perhaps it isn’t the worst film you have seen this year, but it certainly would be vying for the honors.

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Gopalan (Dileep) is a petty thief, who dreams of making it big some day. Teaming up with a pickpocket (Salim Kumar), he breaks into a bank and gets caught on the security cam. There’s Diana (Radha Verma) too, who joins him on his run for life and en route discovers that she has fallen in love with the sweet rascal.

It’s amazing the way they take things for granted in Gopalan. When it’s a nutcase planet that he lives on, with literally everyone gone bonkers, things get pretty much easy for the protagonist. Hence we have a remarkable court hearing when he demonstrates a bike ride before the judge and rushes out into freedom and glory as the world watches open-mouthed.

Essentially, Gopalan could be the local Superhero Gopal(m)an, because at times he does seem to have made a crossover from some comic book that you might be familiar with. He runs like a pro and hurls himself off those heights in style, frequents sewage pipes and flies about with no wings in sight. Primarily the film would remain a showcase for its highly energetic lead actor, but has very little chances of adding up to anything else.

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Yea, it’s indeed blasphemous to even think of ‘Inside Man’ in this regard, and I wouldn’t. But I did hear scores of those heist movies screeching in their graves, as Gopalan makes mincemeat of a bank burglary. And then, all on a sudden he decides enough is enough, and goes on a sprint with the cops hot in chase.

Regrettably, the film has nothing even remotely fascinating about its storyline and so there is little to seize your attention between the gags. Granted that there are a few sparkling specks of humor that vanish even before you realize that they are there. More often than not, Gopalan is quite coarse. This is an absolute strike or slip movie, parts of which did make me laugh out aloud, but for every joke that worked, there were tons that didn’t.

Talking about the jokes, it needs to be jotted down somewhere that gross and lewd does not automatically equal hilarious. There’s plenty of slapstick humor all around that Rowan Atkinson would never approve of, with all the bumping into and being hit and all that.

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If you’re totally into idiocy, loopy looking characters and senseless knocks and bangs and strikes and smacks, you should probably think of a better way to spend your winter evening out. And if you are not really into all these, run buddy, run.

I would admit I am pretty much disappointed with what Santa brought the kids this X’mas. I mean, crazy sounded pretty much fun, but demented certainly isn’t.