App_engine, interesting review. I was expecting Panicker to review this movie. I was checking past few days, but he didnt. Today I didnt check and he seems to have gone and reviewed it :-)
Firstly, Panicker must be of app_engine vintage :-). I mean, college student in early-mid 80's. Here's the clincher - in Chennai! So, no surprise on his IR praise :-)
Coming to his review, interestingly, he raises the very points I mentioned in my brief notes in HUB
* Actors playing britishers not competent
* English conversations poorly written
* Usual Freedom fight movie cliches are there - though like me, he observed that that wasnt a problem by itself
* Action scenes - some of them - the ones that channel tamil superstar fights are poor
* Mammootty doesnt have much of a role to challenge his capability
* It is a simple movie documenting events than a detailed character study or nuanced script
* One of the comments touches upon lack of native Keralan instruments in the BGM
Yet, while I enjoyed the movie thoroughly as it is, he seems to have been disappointed
Counterpoints to his problems:
* Mammotty hasnt been challenged with fiery dialogues so it is not a good movie - basically, that presumes that because Mammootty is there, and he can do it, the movie must go the way of rabble rousing, fiery speeches. I didnt have a problem with the low-key depiction of Mammotty's efforts to stitch together a motley army. It keeps with the guerilla methods that Pazhassi, apparently, adopted. But Panicker seems to have expected conventional war mongering speech from this King - and that purely because MT and Mammootty were involved. So, this is a case of confused expectations
* It is not Oru Vadakkan Veera Gadha. Ofcourse, it isnt. It is Pazhassi Raja. He seems to be expecting something else froma movie which simply doesnt aspire to be an intricate character study
* The English actors are poor, but not so bad as to detract from the experience of the movie. This is subjective, though, and one can grant it to him
* Mamu Koya, Lalu Alex wasted. Well, why not?
* Mammotty's speeches drowned by IR's song - again why not? Vaanam pozhigiradhu was one approach. Why not have a movie where IR's music conveys the freedom spirit?
Interestingly, he also touches upon Sarath Kumar being outstanding. If Prabhu Ram and Honestraj are reading this, :itoldyouso:. Sarathar really has gone and delivered a knockout performance.
Other than the final impact the movie had on him, most of his observations tally with mine. It is interesting that with so much agreement upon the content, the impact we carried was so different :-)