What Is the Story About?
Ramachandran Pillai who works as a security guard at an ATM is the prime witness of a child sexual abuse case against a powerful industrialist Xavier. One day he happens to across a mysterious man named Eesho. They engage in a conversation and the guard pours his heart out to the stranger. Who is Eesho? What is his motive? Who is he there for? There are so many questions the film puts forward.
Performances?
Quite unlikely of him, Jayasurya isn’t the performer of the film despite being the titular protagonist. It is Jaffar Idukki. He aces the part of a truthful, family loving and endearing father and also witness to a sexual harassment case with so much earnestness and believability. Jayasurya on the other hand, overdoes his part and quite gives away the non-existent twist with his unconvincing performance as a mysterious stranger.
Analysis
The film opens to a song featuring Akshara Kishor who is graceful and endearing as Shivani in what looks like a flashback story. We are then shown how the film is on a very serious and grave issue of Child Sexual Harassment with newspaper clips filling the background of opening credits.
With Jaffar Idukki‘s entry, one would expect the story to take off while it simply doesn’t. While it’s appreciable that Jaffar Idukki gets enough scope to perform, Jayasurya’s entry unfortunately adds no weight to the narrative. He is supposed to be this very mysterious villain like character who would transit the story to a space of unpredictability. Instead, his character makes the film cliched and predictable throughout. Despite a comparatively shorter run-time of 107 minutes, the film still feels overly stretched and boring.
One would very much expect the writing to give due justice considering the gravity of the issue it tries to base the story on, but whatever is being fed to the audience later is nothing but an overlong and dragged set of conversations between Jaffar Idukki and Jayasurya. Neither is Suneesh Varanad’s screenplay coherent, nor are his characters meaty. By the time the so called ‘twist’ unravels, it is inevitable for the audience to lose all interest in the film. Add to that, the twist is also something one could see through right from the first 15 minutes.
In short, the biggest drawback of Eesho is the fact that the film tries to sell an over-told story by making its primary characters (women) invisible. Neither does this Nadirshah directorial boast of a sound technical making nor a strong writing side. Besides underutilising Jayasurya as an actor, the makers have also done veteran actor Indrans dirty.
Other Artists?
Besides Jaffar Idukki, none of the performances register. Namitha Pramod, Suresh Krishna, Johny Antony, Indrans and Kottayam Nazeer are some very popular actors. None of their characters have a clear purpose in the film rather than filling the screens.
Music and Other Departments?
Rahul Raj composed the score of the film. With a terribly dragged screenplay and badly staged scenes, the background score could barely elevate or enhance the film. Roby Varghese Raj’s cinematography work and Shameer Muhammed’s editing is also nothing exceptional.
Highlights?
Jaffar Idukki’s performance
Drawbacks?
Incoherent and Dragged screenplay
Story thinner than paper
Cliched revelation
One dimensional characters
Underutilised solid actors
Did I Enjoy It?
No
Will You Recommend It?
No
Eesho Movie Review by Binged Bureau