The film marked Poonam Panday’s entry to the Malayalam screen in a lead role. The makers seem to have banked heavily on the actress. And actress expectedly relies a lot more on her body than her acting skills which was pretty obvious. The actress had an opportunity to portray myriad emotions, but actress never really seemed to make any effort to fit into Malini’s distrait, desperation or exposure. Suman Talwar, Ajay Rathnam, Jakeer Hussain, Ravi Kale once again give us their seen before performance which completely fails to impress. One will wonder how these actors were hooked by the producers to be a part of something like this. Rest of the characters Kavya Singh, Kushi, Farha Khan, Geethika, Sanul Rathi and Samrat are totally wasted.
I didn’t even know where to begin with. Let me start by saying the story of Malini & Co. is a sort of inspired from John Abraham’s Madras Café in a quite terrible way possible. The screenplay lacks direction and pace. And the director lacks clarity. He goes in with the impulse to show the viewers what he thinks they would like to watch and not what he would show. So what we get is close ups of Poonam Panday’s bosom, close glances of her legs and anything that is allowed by our censor board. Loaded with commodious sequences and ample amount of Poonam skin show, Malini & Co. is not for those who would look for Logics. There are even too many songs (They were more like remixed version of Asalem Guruthukuradhu from Antahpuram & Nee Meeda Naaku from Rakshasudu) in the film, you feel the story is progressing in the gaps in between.
Even the background score sounds inspired from various artists, especially Selfie Pulla bgm for action episode deserves a special mention. The cinematographer barefacedly exploits Poonam Panday’s curves and even frustrate the viewers with over usage of his zoom lens. Dialogues in the film just make no sense, there is line in the film – Where Poonam says that I started Spa center to make her brain dead husband comfortable. Another example – where she just enters into Daravi police station commands the officials to leave the National Terrorist as she says so. Editor gets Malini & Co. into the boring zone. This is a serious step down for “Manisha Films”, who earlier directed films like Yamaleela, Ghatotkachudu and Mayalodu in ther Past.
Every month, while watching a disastrous movie in theater, we feel that our Tollywood films cannot get any worse than this. And yet there comes a film that makes us think that Telugu film is a bottomless gulf. With terrible acting, horrible editing, wooden acting, pointless screenplay and crappy direction Malini & Co. leads the way among the best of the worst along with Shyam Gopal Varma and Ramleela this year.
