Lal, the comic hitmaker whose movies always rake in the moolah at boxoffice, is back to what he is best at. His new comic outing ‘Cobra’, with Mammootty in the lead role, along with Lal himself in a major role is releasing on Thursday. Assured by the warm reception from the audience for his earlier flicks, the director has quite a few expectations from his latest.
Even though the film revolves around the theme of twins, a familiar trope in comedies, Lal says that the treatment of Cobra will be unique. “There have been umpteen films on identical twins and the issues they confront. ‘Cobra’ on the other hand takes a different approach. It revolves around the life of two ‘fraternal’ (unidentical) twins who are close to each other and the troubles they fall into. My character’s name is ‘Kari’ and that of Mammootty is ‘Raja’,” says the director-actor, who is also the scriptwriter of the movie.
The title of the film is a short form, in Malayalam, for Kuala Lumpur Brothers where the brothers were born. The siblings always want to be associated with everything that begins with ‘Ko’, be it Coimbatore, Kozhikode or Kottayam, the cities where they move around in.
Lal has produced movies like ‘Hitler’, ‘Black’, ‘Thommanum Makkalum’ and ‘Pothen Vava’ with Mammootty in the lead role. They have also acted together in several movies. But this is for the first time that Lal is directing a movie with the talented actor as the hero. Says Lal about his camaraderie with Mammootty. “For a while now, I have been considering a movie with Mammootty as the central character. We share good chemistry and respect each other. This enabled me to wrap up the film at the earliest. The atmosphere on the sets of ‘Cobra’ was very jovial. Mammootty, in fact became so immersed in the movie that he would come to the sets even when he had no shooting... simply to spend time with the crew of the movie,” recollects Lal.
Though ‘Cobra’ is an entertainer with all the commercial masala, including action and sentiments, the director assures that the strength of the movie is a solid storyline. “Several humorous moments are there in store for the audience. But a touching story is the crux of the film. And since the story is its main strength, I feel this movie can be approached from a serious angle as well.”
The versatile actor whose films have always attracted a packed house, has a take on current comedies. He says, “Though the present day slapstick comedies have several hilarious moments, they fail to create an impact. Along with evoking laughter, a comedy should also have touching moments. The movies churned out today are easily forgettable. If a movie can create a droplet of tear in the audience, then we can say that movie is worthwhile. An element of truth should be there, which is the reason why many of my movies that I took up along with Siddique like ‘Ramji Rao Speaking’, ‘Godfather’, ‘Vietnam Colony’ and ‘In Harihar Nagar’, ran successfully.”
Padmapriya and Kaniha are the heroines of ‘Cobra’. Lalu Alex plays the role of their father. Maniyanpillai Raju, Salim Kumar, Babu Antony, Radhika are the other actors. Music is by Alex Paul. The song “Ente Nenjinullile...” sung by actor Lalu Alex is already a chartbuster.