A giant cut-out of a football superstar is being slowly erected using two bulldozers and ropes. The background music soars, the fans all dance around and the entire village is out to watch the spectacle. The camera zooms in and out, and pans around the cut-out for the next ten minutes. All the incoherent scenes of the past two hours in Argentina fans Kattoorkadavu , directed by Midhun Manuel Thomas, seems to have been building up to this point, of ultimate pointlessness.
- Director: Midhun Manuel Thomas
- Starring: Kalidas Jayaram, Aishwarya Lekshmi
For a sports movie, there is hardly any sporting activity happening between the characters in the film, except one football match in school. It is an endless series of scenes of the Argentina and Brazil fans watching the World Cup matches on television, in clubs or at their home. The only competition between the characters seems to be on who will cheer the loudest or on who will erect the biggest cut-outs.
Wrapped inside this fan club fight is the love story of Vipinan (Kalidas Jayaram) and Mehrunnisa (Aishwarya Lekshmi). Though they have known each other since childhood, love blossoms in him mysteriously when he is on the way to gift a love poem to another girl. The inter-religious love story seems as forced as the fan fights in the film.
The Escobar saga
The story begins during the 1994 World Cup, after which Colombian footballer Andrés Escobar is shot dead for scoring an own goal, and ends during the 2018 World Cup. Vipinan’s imaginary conversations with Escobar are used as a plot device, in a similar manner to the appearance of the saint in Pranchiyettan .
The only take away for football fans, if any, is a chance to recollect some of their personal memories associated with these world cups. Otherwise, there are no edge-of-the-seat moments, expected of such films. The makers should have known that endless stock footage of fan celebrations cannot manufacture excitement on screen.
A disservice to fans
The movie is quite a disservice to the fans of the Argentina team, who are often the butt of jokes for their world cup-less streak of the past three decades, and for their poetic celebrations of the laurels of yesteryear. Only a Brazil fan could have made such a tribute to them.
Published - March 24, 2019 11:39 pm IST
