Solo.Another experimental film by Bejoy Nambiar.Any of us who’s ever been inside a chemistry lab knows that the thing with experiments is that they tend to go wrong, even the most meticulously planned ones.Bejoy Nambiar has chosen to tread an unconventional path right from his debut film, Shaitan.I must admit i liked even the flawed Wazir in bits and pieces but mostly for the sheer presence of Big B.When Nambiar here joins hands with Dulquer Salman expectations were to skyrocket obviously.Here too you’re divided as a viewer between the actor you like and a director who doesn’t live up to his reputation.And it takes a special kind of buff to choose Solo over The Foreigner and the Blade Runner sequel.So I guess disappointment and delight were always looming on the horizon hand in hand and you had no other choice but to trust Nambiar to usher the right sentiment in.
Solo is an anthology of four shorts which are supposedly based on the four elements water, wind, fire and earth.Though I’m yet to figure out how the characters and the stories are linked to the elements, i think i have managed to figure out the title.Solo, i believe is about four stories where the protagonist ends up alone in life, hence Solo, unless I missed another cue.Nambiar starts off with what to me was weakest of the stories and what must have been the toughest of characters to tackle for DQ.He ends the anthology with something which is the most entertaining and the most senseless of the four stories, entertaining because that’s when the audience came back to life after being in suspended animation since the intro of Shekar with his dreadlock-ish hair. Again im confused here because I’m not sure if the laughs were intended or not.I can live with artistic licenses and cinematic liberties but when an army cadet barges into an army wedding where the groom is a police officer to challenge him for a fist fight just to check if he’s man enough for his ex girlfriend and you see the father of the bride cheering his son-in-law to be, you get this feeling that there are alternate realities in this world that you’re still not aware of.
DQ must have had a great learning experience as an actor doing four different roles and he does deliver an earnest performance in each of them.If you ask me to pick a favorite it would be Siva because its the most subtle yet intense turn by Dulquer.One gets a feeling that he’s the only one who has really gained from this movie as an actor though it might not do that star in him much good, Solo indeed i guess.
Bejoy Nambiar tried to hit out of the park but the ball misses his guru Mani Rathnam’s yard and lands in a lot which was just vacated by Ram Gopal Varma.Relax, thats just me exaggerating
gopakumarpurushothaman 