Chanakyatanthram

Except for the arc about criminology and detective investigation, everything else is classic Kannan Thamarakkulam in Chanakyatanthram which ideally shouldn't have been made. Ill-fated Unni Mukundan, who is marketed as an action star in the opening credits, is a budding criminology expert who joins a private detective firm only to find out later that something is wrong with the cases that he has been solving. Now, as bad as the initial sequences are - involving Mukundan in different attires a la Pattanapravesham (1988) style including that of a woman (ughh) - writer Dinesh Pallath's writing becomes convoluted with the arrival of characters played by Shruti Ramachandran and Anoop Menon. I even have this theory that wherever Menon goes he jinxes the film; he's like the opposite of King Midas. The second half confirms the idiocy in Chanakyatanthram as every single character goes ballistic to show that the crime in question was after all righteous. There is no reason for anyone to catch this dumb show that has some of the most ludicrous sequences involving car crashes and fatal accidents. Years ago director Kannan Thamrakkulam used Jayaram to create nonsense to the point that the actor has almost stopped acting now, and now it's Mukundan... Skip for life. TN.