It seemed to be a day of firsts. My first movie at Cinemax, Oberon Mall, my first ever "first day-first show" movie and Dulqueer Salmaan's very first movie. So I was at Edappaly to watch Mammukka's son Dulqueer Salmaan debut film "Second show". Yet another star son aiming for stardom at Mollywood. I had watched the trailer of the movie on YouTube about a month ago and had certainly noticed that the movie had something different to offer. A big respite for the Mollywood industry which was turning into a industry of cliches. The songs by Avial added to the enthusiasm. But despite all this my first day first show stint was never a planned one. Catching a movie on day one was an impossible task before the arrival of the multiplexes. So technically I never used to think about watching the movie on the first day. Moreover, I had initially planned to watch Lalettan's Casannova, the costliest of all Malayalam movies. The option of watching Second show was always there at the back of my mind and it surfaced to domination at the ticket counter, after the encouraging comments of guys in the lift acted as a catalyst to it.
So lets gets started with the review now. The Director Srinath has made a honest attempt in making a movie about a young local rogue rising up the ladder in the world of crime. The young lad's and his friend's journey is presented to us in narrative mode. Dulqueer narrates the story to a young guy in the bus stop as Forrest Gump had narrated his incredible tale only this one being less incredible. Lalu(Character played by Dulqueer) initially works as a driver for a sand mafia before joining the gang of the character played by Baburaj. They are involved in confiscating vehicles that fail to pay the loan interest at the stipulated time by force. Lalu's life takes a turn when his boss is killed by the gang of Vishnubuddhan, a bigger goon. Vishnubuddhan is impressed by the way Lalu and friends tackle his very gang and recruits them. They get the work on transporting ganja from farms run by Vishnubuddhan to the dealers. All goes well until one of Lalu's friends betray him and disappears with Vishnubuddhan's money. This turns Vishnubuddhan against them. The rest of the story unfolds as Lalu and gang gets back at Vishnubuddhan and his friend. The subplots within the main storyline are one of the main highlight of the movie and are really engaging.
Dulqueer as Lalu comes up with a good performance but is overshadowed at times by the guy who played Nelson Mandela PP(Sunny) his close friend. But I must say that Dulqueer has made a really good debut and shows shades his much talented father. The rest of the cast including the veteran stars like Kunjan, Rohini and rest of the newcomers including the heroine and members of Lalu's gang have come up with a decent performances.The music by Nikhil and Avial is really well done and goes well with the movie. The background score by Rex Vijayan though engaging in periods lacked a certain flow to it.
This film certainly belongs to the category of those well directed crime movies which have unfortunately seen little success in Kerala in recent times. Lijo Jose Pellisery had failed twice(Nayakan and City of God) directing films of this genre. I sincerely hope Second show does not end up having a similar fate.
