One Way Ticket

Language : Malayalam
Banner : Thiruvangadan Entertainments
Director : Bipin Prabhakar
Producer : Thiruvangadan Entertainments
Camera : Vipin Mohan
Story : Babu Janardhanan
Screenplay : Babu Janardhanan
Dialogue : Babu Janardhanan
Lyrics : Gireesh Puthenchery, Kavya Madhavan
Music : Rahul Raj
Release : 2008 June 20
Cast : Prithviraj, Bhama, Mammootty, Thilakan, Jagathy Sreekumar, Salim Kumar, Kalabhavan Mani, Prachot, Jagadhesh, Suraj Venjaramood, Govindan Kutty, Balachandran Chullikad, Radhika

One Way Ticket is nothing more than a series of flat jokes stringed together on a clumsy cord. It fiercely struggles to be both naughty and nice, and is effectively neither.

Kunjappu (Prithviraj) is the leader of the Mammootty Fans Association at Malappuram, who would very easily give up his life for the actor. Besides watching Mammootty films, Kunjappu drives an auto rickshaw for a living, and pretends to be in love with his cousin Sajira (Radhika), merely to irk her dad Hajiyar (Jagathy Sreekumar). Love strikes when he bumps into Sunanda (Bhama) at a marriage, and Kunjappu takes upon himself the arduous task of rescuing his lady love from her tormentors - her ominous uncle Ezhuthachan (Thilakan) and his wayward son Sasi (Nishanth Sagar).

One way ticket is an exercise in emptiness; there's practically nothing happening here. I suppose it has endorsed itself as a comedy, and yet offers very few giggles and even fewer chuckles. The way those gags have been forcefully woven into the narrative makes you whimper and whine instead. I couldn't help but wonder as to whether Fans' Association meetings actually discussed issues as petty and paltry as the ones depicted in One Way Ticket. For sure, they can't be! This obsession with insignificance is what mars the film's chances.

Prithviraj has been bestowed a vibrant 'Voice of the Youth' honor, we realize as the initial titles roll. I wouldn't disagree, for the man is honesty and sincerity personified. He dances like a dream and carries out his stunts in style. There's nothing backing him here; neither a story nor a script, and yet he gives it his all. Thilakan is back after a hiatus, and it's a disgrace that we get to see him in a role that could have been donned by any other junior artiste. The sinister background score that props up when we get to see the actor, embarrassingly reminiscent of those 80's action flicks, is awkward to say the least. With a pair of dark glasses on, we never get to see his eyes in this film, and the few scenes that he graces are left without a cause or result whatsoever.

And there's Mammootty playing himself and even letting us sneak a quick look on his forthcoming flick, Parunthu. He looks as impressive as ever and majestically tides over the triviality associated with the scenes. It has to be admitted that those are the only instances of spontaneity that you would get to see in the film, while the rest of it is a hollow and real gaudy affair that has lots of style and very little stuff.

One Way Ticket is a comedy that is as lame in its narration as in its implementation. There is non-stop outrageousness going on, and almost all of it, though inoffensive, is in fact pretty boring. Half the time, it has no idea as to where it's headed, which is what makes it two-faced and tedious in ways its makers seem completely ignorant of.

This ill-conceived and half-baked attempt at humor is not a side-splitter by any means. Filled with plastic emotions and wrapped up by dry wit, One Way Ticket squanders an excellent cast and some tremendous promise on a frail structure.

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