Movie Review: Mayilattom

In one of the first scenes in the movie Devan (Jayaram) wins the karshaka sree award and reaches home. Then his sister, played by Bindu Panicker and he husband, Janardanan take away his medal and prize money. Soon his other sisters and husbands arrive and they make Jayaram buy alcohol , food and pay for everything. While you may think that this is yet another movie with a sacrificing brother like countless other Malayalam movies, then you would be wrong.

A few scenes later Jayaram has a fight with the local goonda, Ripper (Riyaz Khan) and has to flee with his friend Dasappan (Jagathi Sreekumar). Now you might be trying to remember which movie this scene is from and wonder if it is the same movie again, you would be wrong.

In Pollachi they meet Pazhani, his lookalike, played by Jayaram. Pazhani had created lot of trouble in his village and had left and unlike Devan, Pazhani was a drunkard, womanizer and hated by everyone. They both swap their places, in a first of its kind story in Indian cinema.

Pazhani reaches Kerala, acts as Devan and fixes the family and Ripper. Devan reaches Pollachi, acts as Pazhani, but gets into more trouble. Later he finds that Pazhani has created more trouble in his home. How Devan resolves all these issues is the story.