Cousins (2014 film)

Cousins
Film poster
Directed by	Vysakh
Written by	Sethu
Produced by	Vysakh Rajan
Starring	Kunchacko Boban Indrajith Sukumaran Vedhika Nisha Aggarwal Miya Suraj Venjaramoodu Joju George
Cinematography	Shaji
Music by	M. Jayachandran
Production company	Vyshakha Cinemas
Distributed by	Popcorn Entertainments (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore & Europe)
Release date	19 December 2014 (2014-12-19)
Country	India
Language	Malayalam
Budget	₹10 crore (US$1.2 million)
Box office	₹6.50 crore (US$780,000)

Cousins is a 2014 Malayalam comedy film directed by Vysakh and scripted by Sethu. The story revolves around four cousins, played by Kunchacko Boban, Indrajith Sukumaran, Suraj Venjaramoodu and Joju George, who undertake a journey with a particular intention and the issues they come across in between them. Vedhika and Nisha Aggarwal play the female leads, while Kalabhavan Shajon and Pradeep Rawat feature in supporting roles in the film. The film released on 19 December 2014. The film opened to negative reviews and was average at the box office

Plot

Sam( Kunchako Boban ) , Jojy( Indrajit Sukumaran ), Pauly( Suraj Venjaramoodu ), Tony(Joju George) are four cousin brothers. Sam mets with an accident during his Engineering Studies. So he loses his memory of the past 6 years. To regain his memory, Doctor advices, Sam's cousins to take him on a journey. So they starts their journey. So they travel through the places where he had traveled before losing his memory. On that journey they reaches a palace.So everyone identifies Sam and tells him to bring back Arathi but Sam did not remembers her so they escuses about bringing Arathi.Atfer some days they meets a girl named Malika( Nisha Agarwal ). On meeting that girl Sam reigns his memory and tells his cousins that he knowns this girl. So they went to that girl and asked do you know Sam. She tells them that some years ago he had come to the place and here he meets a girl named Arathi and falls in love with her. But the royal family didn't accept this love and they try to ran away from that palace. Several royal soldiers chase them down through a waterfalls. They try to escape through a boat so Sam said Arathi to stay on the boat till he unhooks it.But when he unhooks the boat The soldiers came so he can't help Arathi to escape that boat but the soldiers are not leaving Sam and not trying to help this leads doubt to Joji that a man in this palace was trying to kill Arathi.

Cast

• Kunchacko Boban as Sam
• Indrajith Sukumaran as Jojy
• Vedhika as Arathi
• Nisha Agarwal as Mallika
• Suraj Venjaramoodu as Poly
• Joju George as Tony
• Pradeep Rawat as Nagarajan
• Kamalinee Mukherjee
• Kalabhavan Shajon as Veerappa Gounder
• Balachandran Chullikkadu as Varkey Master
• Mia George as Ann
• Kailash as Peter
• Ranji Panicker as Doctor
• Shiju as Chandran
• Santhosh as Devarajan
• Vijay Kumar as Rajarajan
• Abu Salim as Hoetl Manager
• Sreedevi Unni
• Kaviraj
• Vinaya Prasad as Threasa
• Sunil Sukhada
• Ponnamma Babu
• P. Balachandran as Guruji

Production

Vedhika was signed to portray Kunchacko Boban's love interest, Bhavana was later replaced with Nisha Agarwal as the team felt that somebody who is not a complete Malayali would be apt for the role. Filming locations include Bangalore, Kochi, Pollachi, Kodaikanal and Athirapilly.

The filming was started on August 10, 2014 at Bangalore Palace, where a majority of filming took place over the next weeks. Around 600 artists, including a cultural troupe from Bangalore and nearly 80 horses were part of a song sequence, which was a five-day-long shoot and costed over ₹80 lakh (US$96,000). Kamalini Mukherjee did an item number for the movie.

Critical reception

Asha Prakash of The Times of India rated 2/5 stars and wrote "Vysakh's Cousins insults a viewer's intelligence. At first, you wonder if you are witnessing the remake of a Kannada or Telugu masala entertainer; but no it has been made purely for Malayalis. The story is dramatic, beyond tolerance, and the narrative illogical. As you leave the hall, one question remains, why was the money - spent on making the songs - not put to better use?". Nicy V.P of International Business Times rated 2/5 stars and call it "A Poor Attempt to Bring out an Entertainer" and wrote "The first impression that you get from "Cousins", directed by Vyshakh, is the fact that it rarely manages to engage audience. The movie, which is touted as a comedy thriller ends up being a highly predictable movie with the least comic experience. The good aspect of the movie would be the cinematography, which managed to visualise the movie in the best way possible. The art direction of the movie was commendable and added to the rich look of the movie. To conclude, "Cousins" failed to meet the expectations with poor scripting and a highly predictable storyline.". Paresh C Palicha of Rediff.com rated 2/5 stars and wrote "Cousins is not an auspicious beginning to the festive season as it is crass and hackneyed. Sethu's script is pedestrian, and caters to front benchers, providing them a thrill per minute, thanks to comedy, comic and a hugely mounted song.".

Veeyen of Nowrunning.com gave 1.8/5 stars and call it "Average" and wrote "A disaster of colossal proportions is what 'Cousins' is. Vysakh's new multi starrer that has hit the screens this festival season might just about manage to scrape through it but it's very unlikely that these 'Cousins' will find any likers or takers thereafter. 'Cousins' does prove a few points though. It demonstrates how a film that has a running time of a couple of hours and several more minutes could be cooked up from a story that is never there, and it also confirms that you could get some of the best actors around working in it. Akhila Menon of Filmibeat.com rated 1.5/5 stars and call it "Repetitive And Outdated" and stated "A movie which attempts to narrate an outdate story line, in the shadow of visual richness. The repetitive story line and the not-so-engaging script by Sethu are the major negatives of the movie. Director Vysakh manages to make the movie look rich and colorful; but fails to make the narration of the plot engaging and interesting. Behindwoods rated 1.5/5 stars and said "Attempted comedy entertainer that turns out to be stereotypical. The entire film appears to have had the intention to bring out a lot of laughs in the beginning and slowly delve into the depth of the script as the suspense unveils. But, the movie unfortunately fails to deliver its intent, as a result of some poor writing, causing many restless moments".

Indiaglitz.com gave 6.5/10 stars and stated "'Cousins, is one movie that works largely for its fun quotient though in a hollow basement. If taken lightly, the movie will entertain you for two hour and ten minutes.Serious viewers are cautioned from trying this regular package . For every others, have a pack of popcorn 'keep away the brains and enjoy the fun stuff". Raj Vikram of Metromatinee.com wrote "Sethu's script is a huge let down and Vysakh's best efforts dont get registered principally because of this. It is unfortunate that such a highly budgeted venture has such an inane storyline. 'Cousins' is like an old product which was lying in some non descript corner. Taking that old product and trying to present it as new with a gaudy makeover is indeed what the makers attempted ,practically. Well, isnt it unbecoming to sell a product well past the expiry date?".