Let me start off by saying this: I find Nivin Pauly endearing. He is one of the easiest actors to watch, much like, a Vijay Sethupathi in Tamil Cinema. It is easy to look past the flaws and distractions in a Nivin Pauly movie… but then came Haneef Adeni’s Mikhael.
I didn’t mind both of Haneef’s previous movies — The Great Father and Abrahaminte Santhathikal(served as the writer). One look at both these films gives you a sense of understanding about Haneef’s style. He loves his biblical references, he loves his slo-mo shots, he loves the glorification of machismo, and his films have amazing background scores for their protagonists. However, style can’t always gloss over substance, and what was somehow pulled off in the two earlier Mammootty films, becomes a 150-minute exercise of futility in this Nivin Pauly-starrer.
There were hardly any redeeming factors, and I don’t remember the last time I looked so many times at my watch to know if the movie was coming to an end. It is not enough if the film has a number of twists and turns, they need to be substantiated by a reveal that makes the trip worth it. But Mikhael‘s biggest undoing is the fact that these reveals not just fall flat but don’t quite matter at all in Haneef’s screenplay.
What should have been an exciting set-up between a viciously excellent Siddique and Nivin becomes a drab game, which doesn’t do justice to Siddique’s effective portrayal of an ingenious antagonist out to avenge his son’s death. Even Unni Mukundan’s Marco, despite a chilling portrayal, doesn’t quite work because there is very little one can do with a half-baked role like this. And Manjima Mohan, well…remove her from the equation, and nothing would have changed in the narrative. Nivin too looks so out of sorts in Mikhael. It’s not easy to transport him from his comfort zone. It requires more than just top-notch cinematography(an impressive Vishnu Panicker) and a series of punch dialogues, which come too late in the film for it to have the necessary impact.
The other major grouse I had with Mikhael was the ‘million’ cutaway shots to the biblical Mikhael, the guardian angel. See, I understand cinema is a visual medium, but these constant cutaways to establish the connection between Nivin’s Michael and Mikhael is insipid, to say the least. We get it… he is here to save his family. Just move on with the narration.
And Haneef is aided very much in the narration by Gopi Sundar, whose background score is one of the few highlights of the movie. The other impressive factors of Mikhael include the portrayal of the family dynamics of Michael and his family, the neat performance of Navani Devanand, who plays Nivin’s sister Jenni, and Suraj Venjaramood’s no-nonsense cop Issac.
Basically, the thing is, Haneef Adeni’s world never had a place for naivete or charm. It is a world for people who don sunglasses, wear leather jackets, rock a slo-mo shot, and can rattle off English and swear words with the same ease as pumping bullets into the hordes of antagonists. It is a world for Superstars, and not everyday people. Unfortunately, Nivin’s John Michael is no David Nainan(The Great Father) or Derrick Abraham(Abrahaminte Santhathikal), and that’s exactly why Mikhael, ends up becoming the first disappointment of 2019.
Avinash Ramachandran 