Oru Mexican Aparatha tells the story of feud between two parties – KSQ and SFY in Maharaja Campus. Former is the ruling and dominant party for many years . Whereas the latter is trying to gain a foothold by winning a seat for the first time. Keep aside the college political backdrop, Oru Mexican Aparatha at its heart is the usual story of an underdog overcoming all the odds. The movie manages to tell the story neatly for almost three-fourth of the run-time but starts losing its steam towards the end.
First to the positives. Writer-director Tom Emmatty has a flair for comedy which is why most of the first half works. The actor who plays Jomey contributes well there too. The take on the movie -Niram was particularly enjoyable. In the first half, Tom also spends on slowly building the tension between Roopesh and Tovino-Neeraj gang and these portions work out very well. Manikandan Aiyappan’s music is a huge plus and helps in adding thrills to various scenes.
Tovino’s screen presence is actor’s big asset and he uses it to good effect at many places especially in the confrontation scenes with Roopesh. But two actors score above Tovino in Oru Mexican Aparatha – Roopesh Peethambaran and Neeraj Madhav. Roopesh doesn’t really look he has been away from the front of camera for a long time. He plays the smart and cunning villain with great confidence and carries off the slow motion scenes with elan. But the movie’s biggest surprise and the best performance perhaps comes from Neeraj Madhav .The actor has a very well etched out character and looks calm, composed and assured while playing it. He is particularly good in a scene at the party office with Hareesh Peradi towards the end.
Now to the problems. The biggest one is that there is only little happening in the form of story in the second half as you almost see the ending as soon as the second hour starts. Perhaps the idea that the heroes would only take the beating but wont hit back does make it look realistic. But beyond a point it gets tedious and repetitive. The climax looked incomplete and leaves you wanting more.
Also there is no grey in the movie. One party is shown full white and another black. This is where it falls short of 2006’s classic Classmates which portrayed college politics more evenly. Another confusion is the era in which the movie is happening. It is mentioned that the camera uses film and students don’t use mobiles.But keep aside few things ,it doesn’t really look like the story is rolling several years back.
Oru Mexican Aparatha should be a treat for SFI supporters. For normal audience, it is a decent watch for one time. But It may not really offer much to make you want to revisit the movie again when it actually had the potential to do so.
