The title says it's a terrific love story and Oru Yamandan Premakatha has this freewheeling ebullience filling majority of its frames. It has Dulquer Salmaan’s oozing charm, suave in his designer lungis playing the cool and compassionate rich kid. It has a breed of brilliant co-stars, an uninterrupted supply of humour and enough feel-good factors. Yet the film ends up a bland treat.
To start with, there is no love story, yamandan or otherwise as B.C. Noufal's divine, high-end line of love fails to connect with lesser mortals.
- Starring: Dulquer Salmaan, Soubin Shahir, Vishnu Unnikrishnan, Nikhila Vimal
- Direction: B.C. Noufal
Oru Yamandan Premakatha opens with an irrelevant prologue and then the hero and his cronies are introduced. Lallu (Dulquer Salmaan) belongs to a wealthy family, but is free-spirited and gives two hoots about class divides. All young girls in the island of Kadamakkudy follow him like love-sick puppies, but Lallu is waiting for the right girl, the one who will ignite a spark in his heart, the one who will arrive accompanied by A.R .Rahman music. And after several rounds of ‘spark testing’ with his buddies Lallu finds his dream girl in a missing person news article. The film is all about how he tracks down the girl and the mystery that follows.
Oru Yamandan Premakatha has its script penned by Bibin George and Vishnu Unnikrishnan, the duo who pulled off mass entertainers like Amar Akbar Anthony and Kattappanayile Rithwik Roshan. Humour is their forte, but here it looks more staged than situational. Also, their brand of comedy doesn't really blend with idealism, creating a dull, tepid taste every now and then.
You will find plenty of new-age cliches from the migrant labourer speaking chaste Malayalam to Mollywood's recent obsession with Bible. The film also gets preachy giving you lessons on nerve-racking corporate jobs and the joys of simple living among others. And when Pranchikuttan (Salim Kumar), who offers unlimited support to Lallu's quest, finds his daughter with a young boy, he spits out the most syrupy lines on parental love and the girl promises that she will not repeat her 'mistake'.
Dulquer Salmaan does an excellent job as Lallu, the man of many quirks. But nearly all women in the film have wallflower roles and there are times even talented actors like Soubin seem clueless. Oru Yamandan Premakatha could have been an endearing ride, but its garbled and shallow core keeps everything awry.
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