Angamaly Diaries Review: Totally gripping, entertaining and exciting

The narratives of all the Lijo Jose Pellissery films were always unique and that made him a director of superior craft. With his new movie Angamaly Diaries, he once again mesmerizes you with a brilliant depiction of gang rivalry and offers a very exciting cinema that will make you happy with its brilliance in making.

Vincent Peppe is this young boy from Angamaly. His influential characters in the childhood were local goons and he aspired to live a life like that. That aspiration ended up in the formation of his gang which became a prominent gang as time progressed. The film mainly focuses on the repercussions of one particular incident in the gang rivalry and how that event ends on a shocking way.

City of God was one film where Lijo went for the realistic way of narrating gangster life. He comes back to that format through Angamaly Diaries. Chemban Vinod Jose has scripted the film and the writing skillfully includes all the gang equations without much drama. With long shots and close camera angles, the indulgent feel the movie creates is quite impressive. As a story the film isn’t trying to put any statement across. But the way Lijo has constructed the proceedings invites you for a thoroughly engaging ride.

The look of the film may have the shade of a comedy, but the film has a very brutal realistic approach to its theme. The brutal honesty makes way for realistic organic conversations and that in my opinion creates a genuine humor. The screenplay effectively constructs the world around Peppe for us. Those 11 minutes of climax and the conclusion of it were simply brilliant. The cinematography from Girish Gangadharan was terrific and the unconventional scores from Prashant Pillai enhances the beauty of the narration. The editing was also impressive.

It is very difficult to take names and appreciate in a film that has over 86 artists and a minimum of 20 important characters. Everyone did justice to their characters and let me just mention two names. Antony Varghese as Vincent Peppe looks really promising and more than him, Sarath Kumar who depicted the character of Appani Ravi is a great promise.

The director’s last experiment Double Barrel wasn’t a completely pleasing experience. But Angamaly Diaries is totally gripping, entertaining and exciting. Director’s craft is evident in every frame of Angamaly Diaries.