Director: Ranjith Sankar
Producer: S.Sunderrajan
Cast: Prithviraj,Ann Augustine,Biju Menon,Jagathy Sreekumar,Vijayaraghavan,Nedumudi Venu,Salim Kumar,Suraj Venjaramoodu,Vijeesh
Music Director:Bijilal
Cinematographer: Ajayan Vincent.
Studio: S.R.T. Films.
‘Arjunan Sakshi‘ is the latest movie from director Ranjit Shankar .His debut film ‘Passenger’ made a quite entry at the box office but went on to become one of the biggest hits of Malayalam film industry in 2009.Arjunan Sakshi deals with a socially relevant theme as it talks about the need to be responsible and vigilant citizens in this country.
The plot of the movie revolves around Roy Mathew (Prithviraj) who is an architect by profession.He has spent most of his life abroad.He decides to settle down in Kerala,after having taken up a new position with a builder in Kochi.Meanwhile, a journalist Anjali Menon (Ann Augustine) gets into trouble when she publishes a letter from an unknown person called Arjunan, who has some clues related to the murder of former district collector Firoze Mooppan (Mukesh).As the movie progresses Roy starts hogging the limelight as he is mistaken for ‘Arjunan’.He is totally shaken up by the sudden happenings as he has no idea about the dramatic turnaround of events and is soon targeted by some goons.
Ranjith, who has written the script besides directing it, has infused honesty into the story and has some genuine social message to convey.The initial scenes are genuinely thrilling and the first half has some surprising twists.However,the second half has less twists and turns compared to the first.This is Prithviraj’s first movie in 2011 and he had quite a point to prove after his last two movies ‘Anwar’ and ‘The Thriller’ didn’t do much welll at the boxoffice.He looks fine and delivers a nice performance in the role of an “ordinary” citizen who can do nothing much other than rue about corruption and nepotism in our country.Ann Augustine, who shot into fame with her title role in Elsamma Enna Aankutty, is fine. The rest of the cast including Jagathy Sreekumar, Nedumudi Venu, Vijayaraghavan,Biju Menon, Suresh Krishna and Vijeesh have done their roles well.It has also has social activists CR Neelakandan and Sara Joseph acting in it. One of the highlights of the film is the spectacular visuals by Ajayan Vincent. Biji Bal’s music is good as well.
The theme of the movie is relevant,fresh and entirely different compared to to usual films that we see in malayalam these days.It makes you think about the state of affairs around you, which may be an achievement in itself.