Ordinary: Better than Ordinary !

A wannabe Minister lands up as a bus conductor in a remote yet beautiful village Gavi, in high ranges of Kerala. He has the company of a big built and bigger talking driver and a motley bunch of villagers including the Gavi Girl.

The driver with a Palakkad accent and uncanny ability to flirt and the politically conscious conductor strike a nice friendship. Soon they get involved in the day to day life of the small hill-town Gavi. How the duo get embroiled in a complicated accident case and how they handle the situation forms the crux of the story.

Scripted and directed by Nishad K Koya and Sugeeth respectively, "Ordinary" is a fun ride through most of first half and then goes grim. Biju Menon as driver Suku and Kunchacko Boban as conductor Iravikuttan Pillai strike a fine balance.

The main hero of the movie definitely is the dialogue writer. Some superb, crisp and everyday life dialogues pop up throughout the first half like those beautiful water falls along the way we travel in the movie. Biju Menon springs in a fantastic performance and does total justice to the role as well as the dialogues. Kunchacko Boban is affable, efficient and good.

New face Sritha Sreenivas as Kalyani, the Gavi Girl looks like a Nepali and it appears as if she has a long way to reach Kerala. Ann Augustine and Jishnu have very little to do. Lalu Alex is as good as he always has been. Baburaj has attained some kind of star-status post Salt & Pepper. He is there in the movie solely to evoke a few laughs and nothing else. But his drunk act is good and doesn't jar. Asif Ali overacts to the level of getting almost obnoxious. There are many small time characters who are quite efficient. Salim Kumar needs to come out of the award hangover. 

The writer / director duo get confused in the second half and load elements of heroism into the conductor's character and then the movie takes a real ordinary route and meanders to a climax that disappoints. How come the Police or the KSRTC or the omnipresent and omnipotent unions aren't brought into the picture in a politically charged Kerala remains a mystery.

Completely unnecessary songs act like 'Tyre punctures' during the journey. The drive gets really rocky when the two protagonists go on investigating the case themselves and bring justice at the end. Sethuramayyar would have been proud of the investigative brilliance shown by Iravi. A murder mystery and investigative thriller, this movie is not. That part could have been handled better. 

There are a lot of things that are ordinary in the movie. But this being a first time effort from the director, the movie has a lot of good things and we must appreciate and encourage such attempts. The place Gavi, the photography, the humor, the dialogues and Biju Menon are definitely extraordinary and make it worth our time and money. 

My opinion: Definitely worth a watch !