Voice Of Sathyanathan Movie Review: A one-time watch with an interesting central character

Raffi’s Voice of Sathyanathan is a one-time watch. It had its moments but towards the end, it fell flat. It tells the story of Sathyanathan, an ordinary man, played by Dileep and how he eventually saves the life of a convict played by Joju George. Even through the crippling writing, the acting performances are not bad. Even though it boasts an extremely talented cast, they all stumble through the patchwork job that is the movie.

If you combine previous Dileep movies like Nadodimannan, Karyasthan, Sringaravelan etc, with some added elements of a nuanced character like Sathyanathan who had great potential – that’s the movie. He remains un-heroic even till the end. And the one interesting part of the role was how he reacted to the climax scene. Siddique’s role was the typical ‘comedy relief’ neighbour while Veena Nandhakumar plays the wife who holds fort for a while, then leaves when things get hard and returns after the climax- a type of character which now belongs to the stock character list in Malayalam films.

Anupam Kher made a cameo which is nothing worth mentioning. The ambiguity of the theme itself is a bit baffling at times. A drunk Sathyanathan threatens the Panchayat President and stomps on a fence while threatening him. The Indian President’s security detail who was around as he is soon visiting the village takes him into custody as he was threatening the ‘President’ and later keeps him in preventive detention because of the same. In the jail, he meets Joju. The amount of times he gets in and out of jails, frankly, we lose count at the end.

Another scene that stood out was one where a boy child grabs a doll for Joju and Anusree’s (who plays his wife) girl child. It’s pink. The mother coaxes the child saying it’s a doll for girls and even shames him with the typical ‘ayyee’. In this day and age, it cannot be seen as a mistake but the thought process of the filmmakers.

Jagapathy Babu is an actor who has proved his mettle in many movies. Seeing him reduced to a stock character, the straightforward, cold, icy cop was bad enough. Then the character speaks the only English dialogue in a terrible accent. No, it doesn’t count as an Indian accent even, despite him being a top security officer, which leaves one speechless for a moment. The dubbing team probably forgot about that one unnecessary English dialogue till the end. He spoke Hindi just fine.

The dialogues itself were a bit jarring at times. Viewers have seen Dileep successfully pull off these situations in the past, but after the very interesting, Keshu Ee Veedinte Nathan, this is a step back. Malayalam films are at a point where old tales in new packages won’t work. It’s time filmmakers stopped underestimating audiences.