Medium : Malayalam
Starring : Asif Ali, Nedumudi Venu, Sreenivasan, Lal, Prasanth Narayan, Rajesh Hebbar, Rima Kallingal, Swetha Menon, KPAC Lalitha
Director : Sibi Malayil
Music : John P.Varkey

It is unofficially heard, since the time of its shooting days that the new project by Sibi Malayil is a remake from hindi. The movie titled 'Unnam' is Sibi's third consecutive project with young actor Asif Ali, after 'Apoorva Raagam' and 'Violin'. The script is written by Swathi Bhaskar (director of the movie 'Currency').

In the beginning of the title credits itself they have shown, this one is adapted from 'Johnny Gaddhar', directed by Sriram Raghavan. So please don't raise issues on this, the commitment have been done by the team already.

'Unnam' is produced by David Kachappilly. Ajayan Vincent is the cinematographer, he worked with Sibi Malayil in 'Apoorva Raagam'. After 'Asuravithu', this is another action role for Asif Ali. Bollywood actor Prasanth Narayan, who was seen in 'Murder 2', had got a notable role to do in this movie. New music director John P.Varkey is introduced here. A controversial incident has happened in the shooting sets of this movie, as the director had lodged a complaint against the heroine Rima Kallingal at FEFKA, regarding her leaving from the place without informing anyone in the crew, it was later solved as it was a misunderstanding happened from the part of the production controller.

The story of the movie starts with the gang including Sunny (Lal), Murugannan (Nedumudi Venu), Tomy (Prasanth Narayan) and Aloshy (Asif Ali) deciding to work for a big deal, so that they can make bulk amount of money, within a short period of time. Though everything was planned accordingly, some unexpected incidents and fowl plays happened during the journey and they were forced to pay the price for that.

Though, this one is a scene by scene remake from 'Johnny Gaddhar', the real thrill that we received in the original version, is lacking here. Neil Nithin Mukesh is not an experienced campaigner, but in his debut project, he did far better than Asif. Many of the incidents in the remake has got a dramatic feel. Asif Ali needs more stability and improvement in handling big roles like this. The second half creates lag in few places, the card game is an example. As a new face in malayalam, Prasanth Narayan did well. His dialogue accent shows the small struggle in handling the language, in few places. Lal did well in the role of an ex-gangster, who lives with the dreams of his wife. Sreenivasan and Nedumudi Venu did their role in their own style. Rima Kallingal is ok, the shades of her role in 'City of God', comes in between. 

Songs by new music director John P.Varkey are not convincing. The bg score is good for the mood. Ajayan Vincent's cinematography is an amazing attraction of the movie. Bijith Bala is the editor. Even though there are few flaws, the director had presented it without giving much boring feel.

Compared to its original, 'Unnam' is little bit dramatic and also lacks the real 'punch'; even then this is a watchable one for hard core lovers of action and crime thrillers.

Rating : 6.5 / 10