Mohanlal, Mallu Movies and me

Aye Auto is one for the proletariat. Mohanlal’s character is an honest auto-rickshaw driver who always does the right thing etc. He gets hired to ferry the granddaughter of a retired banker to and from college everyday (this being in the 90’s when the concept of chauffeur-driven cars was still to gain ground). Being the all-round nice guy that he is, he manages to win the girl’s heart although he’s a rube and she’s educated and can speak English.
Good fun movie, and the climax involves a whole horde of autos driving out in the night to the bad guys’ den. Not as intimidating as the Hell’s Angels, perhaps, but it did show how effective people power could be :-)

His Highness Abdullah takes a fairly improbable premise and still manages to weave a decent movie out of it, with some excellent music. Nedumudi Venu’s character is some minor potentate-type, lording it over a nextended family that wants him dead so they can get their hands on his fortune. Mohanlal’s character is a (Muslim) singer in Mumbai, who gets hired by Sreenivasan to off said potentate. He has to first endear himself by posing as a (Hindu) classical singer, which offers a lot of scope for songs like this to be included in the movie. Of course, being the good guy he has cold feet and eventually ends up saving NV’s life.

Kireedam would rate very highly for any Mallu movie fan. Besides Mohanlal, Thilakan probably did some of his best work in this movie, playing the upstanding, headstrong head constable who wants to see his son, played by Mohanlal, become a policeman. The son is a happy-go-lucky sort of guy who just wants his dad’s approval. The story turns on one incident, portrayed in this clip, where the father gets beaten up by a goonda, Keerikadan Jose (another reason to remember the movie - I love that name), and the son jumps in to save him, eventually giving into an adrenaline rush to beat up the bad guy and nearly kill him. Things go downhill thereafter, with his friends trying to cash in on his status as a vigilante to boss people around, and the bad guy returning to reclaim his position as top dog. It all ends in tears, predictably, but the performances make you really feel for the main characters. In just this scene, it’s interesting to see Mohanlal’s character transform from bystander to main protagonist as he sees his father get beaten up.
Priyadarshan did try to make this in Hindi as Gardish, with Jackie Shroff and Amrish Puri in the lead roles, but it wasn’t anywhere as good.