At a corner of the Metro Crime Stopper Cell, three cops in mufti are having a quick chat. The visuals of their conversation have been split into a few shots and are being canned from different angles. It's the location of writer-director B.Unnikrishnan's ‘Grandmaster,' with Mohanlal playing the lead. Filming is on in full swing at the top floor of a building at Vennala in Kochi.
“This is the story of a lonely man, an IPS officer named Chandrasekharan (Mohanlal). He is a divorcee who is disillusioned with the system and opted out of mainstream positions to join one of the ‘non-policing' postings, where he has been working for the past 10 years. Now he is forced to take up a challenge, mainly at the insistence of his friends who want him to get out of the rut, and he joined this office,” says Unnikrishnan, about the film's backdrop.
Unnikrishnan's flair for creating taut investigative stories should stand him in good stead as he helms another cop story after making films such as ‘Thriller,' ‘Smart City' and ‘I.G.'
In the scene that is being filmed, Chandrasekharan is talking to Kishore (Narain), an enterprising young police officer and Rasheed (Jagathy Sreekumar), a senior cop. Priyamani plays Deepthy, Chandrasekharan's former wife and a successful lawyer. The cast includes Anoop Menon, Roma, Seetha and Mithra Kurian.
Chess as a metaphor
“The title ‘Grandmaster' evidently points to Chandrasekharan's interest in chess. In fact, chess is being used as a metaphor here. One can envision future moves in a game of chess, while it is not possible in real life. You can master the board but you can never master the game called life. Chandrasekharan is a kind of a defeated person,” explains the director.
“I used to play chess, during my younger days,” says Mohanlal with a smile. In between the shots, he finds time to pose for photographs with some of the onlookers at the location.
After completing ‘Grandmaster,' he will start shooting for Ranjith's new film.
Narain, who was last seen in ‘Veeraputhran,' is also shooting for Mysskin's ‘Mugamoodi' in Tamil. He will soon be doing debutant director Fazal's ‘Mumbai Dosth' with Prithviraj, and Shaji Kailas' adaptation of the Kamal Haasan-hit ‘Kakki Chattai.'
“I have decided to do more number of films from now on. Here, my character is that of a young police officer, who is all excited about his job. This role is even more special as I am sharing the screen with such fantastic actors like Mohanlal and Jagathy Sreekumar,” he says.
Slice of reality
“My character is that of a cop, who is mostly serious, though there are some interesting one liners and funny mannerisms in between. The investigations and questioning that are being shown in this film are actually quite close to what happens in real life,” quips Jagathy Sreekumar.
Prominent production house UTV marks their entry into Malayalam with ‘Grandmaster,' which is planned as a Vishu release. Cinematographer is Vinod Illampilly and music director is Deepak Dev. Still photographer is Jayaprakash Payyannur.
