I, Nobody Review

Prithviraj Sukumaran, is probably one of the most busiest film personalities in India. He acted in and directed, the Malayalam industry hit film, L2: Empuraan, in 2025. He is also currently acting in India’s most ambitious film, Superstar Maheshbabu & S. S. Rajamouli’s, Varanasi. Amid his busy schedule, he teamed up with director Nissam Basheer for the crime-action thriller ‘I, Nobody’. Parvathy Thiruvothu, played the female lead role in the film and Jakes Bejoy, scored the music for the film. After generating enough curiosity among the audience with an interesting trailer, the makers released the film in theatres today. Did, I, Nobody, live up to the expectations and standards set by Malayalam films in thriller genre? How did, Prithviraj Sukumaran, do in the role of a common man? Let’s figure it out with a detailed analysis.

What is it about?

Rajeevan (Prithviraj Sukumaran) visits a bank one fine morning and ends up becoming a hostage when robbers enter the bank for a heist. When there were at least twenty to thirty people in the bank, why did the robbers choose, Rajeevan, as a hostage? How is Rajeevan’s wife, Meera(Parvathy Thiruvothu), connected to his visit to the bank branch? What happens when the robbers escape from the bank with Rajeevan, as a hostage? Is Rajeevan, a part of the robbers’ gang or does he have nothing to do with them? What challenges did Rajeevan and his family face after he visited the bank branch? Forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

Prithviraj Sukumaran, in the role of a struggling husband in a troubled marriage and a common man stuck in a crime, did a very good job with his performance. He looked believable as a common man and portrayed the helplessness and eccentricity very well. Parvathy Thiruvothu, in the role of a frustrated wife in a seemingly lifeless marriage, did a good job with her performance. Both the kids who played the roles of the daughters to the lead pair, performed well. Especially, the kid who played the young daughter role, performed very well and also, generated good laughs through her innocent expressions and dialogue delivery. All other actors in the film delivered an adequate performance. Nothing special in their performances to point out in particular.

Technicalities:

Malayalam films usually boast of strong technical values. However, I, Nobody, is one of those very rare Malayalam films, in which most of the technicians delivered a substandard output. An intriguing background score may have helped to engage the audience in a better way, but Jake Bejoy, came up with a pretty ordinary score. From the start to the end, irrespective of the mood of the sequences, he just came up with one standard BGM. Dinesh Purushothaman’s cinematography is standard. There’s not much to talk about his work in the film. Editing is one of the biggest negatives of the film. The action episodes were dragged out forever. Better editing would have helped the film a great deal.

Positives:

1.⁠ ⁠Core Plot
2.⁠ ⁠Pre-Interval Episode

Negatives:

1.⁠ ⁠Unexciting Screenplay
2.⁠ ⁠Ordinary Direction
3.⁠ ⁠Never Ending Action Episodes
4.⁠ ⁠Lengthy Runtime

Analysis:

Remember the ‘food chain’ story we studied in school? In the food chain, the producer (grass) is eaten by the grasshopper. The grasshopper is then eaten by the frog, and the frog is eaten by the snake, and so on. It is nature’s way of maintaining ecological balance. Therefore, if a grasshopper, frog, or snake is to survive and live long, they not only have to consume their predecessors but also the living beings above it in the food chain. In a world full of opportunists and selfish people, ‘Survival of the fittest’, is the need of the hour if a person has to survive and protect his family. The story and screenplay writer, Sameer Abdul, took the theory of the ‘Food Chain’ and tried to narrate a story of a common man against the backdrop of a heist. Sameer deserves appreciation for coming up with a very exciting storyline which has all the ingredients to become a very engaging crime thriller. But, his screenplay and, Nissam Basheer’s direction, failed to utilise the potential of the storyline and ended up coming up with a lengthy run-of-the-mill & unexciting heist drama.

A middle-class, somewhat eccentric common man with a wife and two young daughters unintentionally becomes part of a bank robbery. The robbers take him hostage while escaping in a car from the bank after the robbery. During their escape, the robbers crash the car, and all of them die except the hostage. The police begin to investigate the case but they are unable to recover the stolen money. Where is the money? Where did the robbers hide the money before they died in the accident? Did the hostage know where the robbers hid the money? Did the hostage steal the money from the robbers? What happens when everyone around a common man, thinks he has the robbed money with him and tries to extort money by blackmailing him? When a film with the above setup is made in Malayalam, we expect an edge-of-the-seat intelligent thriller, right? Unfortunately, there’s nothing intelligent that we find in the screenplay of the film. When a common man is put into a situation as mentioned above, we expect him to either take the help of the police to protect himself and his family or, expect him to use his brain and come up with a few smart and intelligent ideas to get away from the trouble, isn’t it? However, what we see in the film is a protagonist who involves himself in never-ending action sequences one after the other to protect his family. He fights with goons, police, the common public, security guards, etc., as if he were a superhuman. There’s nothing ‘common’ about the way he fights. A film with the title ‘I, Nobody’, deserves a relatable fight by the protagonist, instead of taking the route of an over-the-top commercial hero template of fighting against hundreds of people.

The take-off of the film was interesting. Although the execution is uneven, the first half of the film ends on a satisfying note with a good pre-interval episode. The film gets into a monotonous zone at the start of the second half and continues until the end. Politics, social media content creators over enthusiasm in making videos on trending topics, trial by media, marital issues, trauma caused by a couple in a troubled marriage on their kids – the writer and the director, touched all these topics in the second half and ended up messing up a storyline that has a very good potential. There were at least seven to eight lengthy and unnecessary action sequences in the film which test the patience of the audience after a point.

Overall, I, Nobody, has a very interesting plot and a lead actor who can portray any character effortlessly but the unexciting writing, screenplay and direction, worked against it big-time. If you step into the theatre expecting at least a decent crime thriller, you will most certainly be disappointed.

Bottomline – Run-of-the-mill ‘Heist’

Rating – 2/5