van Kalip Demerit Thorn: Priyadarshan

I had heard on Zoom TV a while back about Priyadarshan’s latest project in Bollywood. It was to star Shahrukh Khan and Irrfan Khan, with the former Khan playing a superstar. My suspicions were immediately aroused, and then confirmed by this article. This time around Priyadarshan was copying a Malayalam movie that had only recently been made, Katha Parayumbol. It makes me extremely angry to see this talentless hack shamelessly rip Malayalam movies that were not even made by him and make such a name for himself. Hera Pheri is considered as one of the classic Bollywood comedies. How I wish people in North India would call him out for the the a**hole that he is. The Wikipedia article about him contains detailed descriptions of all his plagiarized movies. His modus operandi consists of picking a classic comedy movie, preferably one by Siddique-Lal, changing the setting to Mumbai and throwing in a few songs in exotic locations with skimpily clad females in the background. He has brought shame and embarrassment to all movie-loving Mallus and for this reason, I confer upon him the van Kalip Demerit Thorn. The bastard that he is, he might even try to contact me about the possibility of a cash prize.

My issues with Priyadarshan do not just end with his flicking of stories. It is also the quality of his Malayalam movies. Most of them are silly slapstick comedies that rely a lot on implausible mistaken identities. Sure, there have been exceptions – restrained efforts like “Mukundanetta… Sumithra Vilikkunnu“, “Kilukkam” and “Chitram“. But to me, a Priyadarshan comedy is automatically associated with half-thought out scripts and overacting. His favourite “comedy” routine can be summarized like this:

Actor 1: <some offensive statement, spoken in low breath>
Actor 2: <takes offense and gets ready for argument>
Actor 1: Alla, njan paranjathu <comment sounding similar to previous one, but meaning something totally different>

Another of his favourites is a chaotic scene at restaurant/ice cream parlour with a lot of food being thrown around. I don’t think a lot of people find Kuthiravattom Pappu with ice cream on his face that funny.

I am also offended by the fact that he is married to the actress Lissy. That someone who looks like him could be married to someone as beautiful as her should alone suffice as proof that there is no justice in this world. I am reminded of this website I recently discovered called “Hot Chicks with Douchebags” (probably NSFW). If only I had a photo of this happy couple that I could submit to this site.