''Casanovva'' (also known as ''Confident Casanovva'') is a 2012 Indian

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

-language romantic

action thriller film Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life ...

directed by

Rosshan Andrrews Rosshan Andrrews (born 6 January 1975) is an Indian film director who mainly works in Malayalam cinema. Biography Rosshan Andrrews was born to Moolakuzhi Nedumparampil Andrews and Burney. He attended St. Aloysious Thrissur and Cochin College, E ...

and written by Bobby & Sanjay. It was produced by Roy C. J. of Confident Group in association with

Aashirvad Cinemas Aashirvad Cinemas is an Indian film production company based in Kochi, Kerala. It was established in 2000 by Antony Perumbavoor, since then, it has produced over 30 Malayalam films, starring Mohanlal. Since 2009, the company co-operates with th ...

. It stars

Mohanlal Mohanlal Viswanathan (born 21 May 1960), known mononymously as Mohanlal, is an Indian actor, film producer, playback singer, film distributor, and director who predominantly works in Malayalam cinema besides also having sporadically appeare ...

Shriya Saran Shriya Saran Bhatnagar (; born 11 September 1982) is an Indian actress who works predominantly in Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi-language films. Although Saran aspired to become a well-known dancer, she became an actress with her film debut in 2001 ...

Raai Laxmi Raai is a given name and surname. Notable people with the name include: * Raai Laxmi (born 1989), Indian film actress and model *Seba Al-Raai Seba Al-Raai (born 25 June 1982) is a Syrian road cyclist. In 2011, she represented her nation at the ...

Roma Asrani Roma Asrani is an Indian model turned actress who mainly appears in Malayalam-language films. She has starred in over 25 films. She is popularly known mononymously as Romah. Life Roma Asrani was born to Sindhi parents in Trichy, Tamil Nadu. S ...

Sanjjanaa Galrani Sanjjanaa Galrani is an Indian model and actress who made her film debut in the 2005 Telugu film Soggadu. She is known for her role in the Kannada film ''Ganda Hendathi'' (2006). She played a supporting role in the 2008 Telugu film '' Bujjigadu ...

Vikramjeet Virk Vikramjeet Virk is an Indian actor who has worked in Telugu, Punjabi, Hindi and Malayalam language films. Early life Vikramjeet was born on 19 July 1984 to Sukhwant Singh Virk and Harjinder Kaur Virk in Tharwa Majra village, Karnal district, ...

Abhishek Vinod Abhishek Vinod is an Indian actor who has appeared in Tamil and Malayalam language films. After working as a model, he made his breakthrough as an actor in Veruli as a police inspector which has directed by Amudhavanan P and with a supporting ...

Arjun Nandhakumar Arjun Nandhakumar (born 22 August 1986) is an Indian actor, who appears in Malayalam films. He made his debut in 2012 with ''Casanovva'' directed by Rosshan Andrrews. Early life and education Arjun Nandhakumar was born in Chennithala, Kerala. ...

, Shahid Shamzy,

Jagathi Sreekumar Sreekumar P. K. (born 5 January 1951), better known by his stage name Jagathy Sreekumar or simply Jagathy, is an Indian actor, director and playback singer, who has appeared in over 1500 Malayalam films in a career spanning almost four decades ...

Lalu Alex Lalu Alex is an Indian actor who works in Malayalam cinema. In a career spanning four decades, Lalu Alex has acted over 250 movies and is known for his character roles, comic roles and antagonistic roles in Malayalam movie industry. Lalu Alex ...

Riyaz Khan Riyaz Khan is an Indian actor and bodybuilder. He predominantly works in Malayalam and Tamil films and television series, besides acting in a few Telugu and Kannada films, as well as two Hindi films. Riyaz debuted in Malayalam through the 1994 ...

and

Shankar Panicker Shankar may refer to: People *Shankar (name), including a list of people with the name * Sankar (writer) (Mani Shankar Mukherjee), Bengali writer * L. Shankar, Indian violinist * S. Shankar, Indian film director commonly credited as Shankar *Sanka ...

. The film features original soundtrack composed by

Gopi Sundar Gopi Sundar C. S. (born 30 May 1977) is an Indian music director, programmer, playback singer, songwriter, actor and performer who works prominently in Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil film industries. He started his career composing music for tele ...

, Alphons Joseph, and

Gowry Lekshmi Gowry Lekshmi (born 2 August 1993) is an Indian composer, singer, songwriter, and music producer from Cherthala, Kerala. Early life She is from Cherthala, a village in Alappuzha of Kerala. She studied in St. Mary of Leuca Senior Secondary School ...

, and a

film score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...

composed by Sundar. Produced on a budget of 12 crore, it was one of the most expensive Malayalam films ever made at that time. ''Casanovva'' was released in India on 26 January 2012. The Hindi remake rights to the film were bought by Ketan Shah for .

Plot

The film is about Casanovva, a billionaire playboy, the owner of Casanovva's Eternal Spring, an international chain of flower boutiques. He has at his beck and call a faithful array of female followers including his staff, friends and former girlfriends, who will do anything for him. The film starts with a robbery carried out by four criminals and they decide their next target in a wedding hall. They enter the wedding place as Casanovva's guests. Casanovva recognises them but allows them to attend the marriage function having some plan in his mind. The young criminals (Alexi, Salim, Arjun, Kiran) take some photos of their targeted rich persons and collect their details. Casanovva watches all this and does not respond at the moment. The next day is the wedding ceremony. Casanovva, with the aid of his friend in a TV channel (without revealing his plan), plans a live telecast programme to capture the four criminal's robbery. But unfortunately, the wedding is postponed due to some unexpected reasons. Thus the robbers pull out from their plan. But within this time the TV channel people come for the telecast. Suddenly Casanovva gets an idea and announces a new live romance reality show through the channel named ''FALL IN LOVE''. Then he creates some plans to make the two people in the robbery gang to fall in love with Hanna and Ann Mary and telecast their love scenes using hidden cameras through the live reality show ''FALL IN LOVE''. Hanna falls for one of the young robber by hearing the words of Casanovva, who was her boss. The four robbers try to steal a sword, but casanovva (wearing a mask in face) interrupts them and takes the sword from them. By this time, the TV show became popular and causes some problems to Ann Mary, the robbers and even Hanna. Hanna asks her boss Casanovva what his plan was. So Casanovva reveals his flashback to Hanna. Some years ago, Casanovva came to Dubai and romances some girls. Zacariah who is a magazine reporter publishes the stories of Casanovva and him mingling with girls. Sameera Zacharia, daughter of Zacharia helps Casanovva from a danger and eventually they become friends. During a meeting with Casanovva on the last day of his holiray in Dubai sameera falls for him and believed his feelings for her is also real. But when Casannova returns to Europe he again started to flirt with ladies and forgot sameera who is still waiting fir Casannova. Next year Casannova again came to Dubai for holiday this time an angry and jealous sameera decides to make Casannova feel the tension and pain that she had gone through the past year because of Casannova's flirtious life. Sameera lies to him that she has a lover which made casannova jealous. Casannova is surprised by Sameera's nature and realize that she is different from other women with whom he had relations. Gradually Casanovva understands that he has some different feeling for Sameera than other women. He realises that he is in love with her. She also has love interest in Casanovva. But her father requests Casanovva to leave his daughter. He replies that he was in love with his daughter. Casanovva calls Sameera for a meeting to reveal his love to her.On the day, at A Big Fair in Dubai, Sameera wears a mask to give Casanovva a surprise. But suddenly four robbers rush to the road with the same mask as Sameera. The police try to capture them. The four robbers escape and Sameera is caught by the police. And one of the robber shoots Sameera and she dies at the spot. Casanovva waits for her and returns to his room depressed. On the way, he sees the four robbers escaping in a car. But at that time he had no idea about the incident that had happened. He is informed of the death of Sameera by TV news in his room. He rushes to the police to tell about the robbers. But they don't listen to Casanovva. Here ends the Flashback. He says to Hanna that the aim of the reality show was to make the robbers understand about the feeling of love. He then captures the robbers and makes them explain that Sameera was not their gang member to public through the TV show. Thus Casanovva succeeds in showing the innocence of his lover Sameera to the public and police. Then he asks the robbers who killed Sameera. They reveals that it was nobody else than Alexi. Alexi reveals that he killed Sameera and when she got arrested he thought that she was one of his gang and she will reveal their plan to the police. Soon after, revealing the truth the police arrives at the place. Alexi runs away and Casanova follows him. Casanovva kills Alexi with a gun thereby avenging Sameera's death and surrenders to the police.

Cast

as Casanovva *

as Sameera Zacharia *

as Hanna *

as Ann Mary *

as Nidhi *

as Alexi Joshua *

as Arjun *

as Kiran * Shahid Shamzy as Saleem *

as Luka *

Andria D'Souza Andria D'Souza (AKA Ria D'Souza) is an Indian born in Dubai. She is a TV presenter for Zee Connect, a TV Anchor on'' Zee TV'' and an actor based in India, and is mainly active in Hindi and Malayalam films, such as ''Six X''. Filmography * ' ...

as Mariam Thomas *

as Zachariah *

as Ajay *

as Joseph * Sagar S Nair as Super model * Dimple Rose as Rose * Shilpa Bala

Production

The film's production was launched at Confident Cascade in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

on 24 January 2009. The event was attended by film personalities including

, Vishnuvardhan,

Jagathy Sreekumar Sreekumar P. K. (born 5 January 1951), better known by his stage name Jagathy Sreekumar or simply Jagathy, is an Indian actor, director and playback singer, who has appeared in over 1500 Malayalam films in a career spanning almost four decad ...

Arya Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ' ...

Arshad Warsi Arshad Warsi (born 19 April 1968) is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi films. He is the recipient of several awards including a Filmfare Award from five nominations and is noted for acting in varied film genres. Before making his acting deb ...

Lakshmi Rai Lakshmi (; , sometimes spelled Laxmi, ), also known as Shri (, ), is one of the principal goddesses in Hinduism. She is the goddess of wealth, fortune, power, beauty, fertility and prosperity, and associated with ''Maya'' ("Illusion"). Alo ...

Priyanka Nair Priyanka Nair is an Indian model-turned-actress who predominantly works in Malayalam film industry. She made her debut in the Tamil film ''Veyyil'' in 2006. She gained critical acclaim for her roles in '' Bhoomi Malayalam'', ''Vilapangalkappura ...

Priyadarshan Priyadarshan (born 30 January 1957) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer who works predominantly in Malayalam and Hindi films, while also having done six films in Tamil and two films in Telugu. He has done about 31 films in Hi ...

Sibi Malayil Sibi ( Sindhi: سيوي ur, ) is a city situated in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. The city is the headquarters of the district and tehsil of the same name. Etymology The origin of the town's name is attributed to Rani Sewi, a Hindu la ...

, Suresh Kumar,

P. V. Gangadharan Parayarukandi Vettath Gangadharan is an Indian film producer and businessman from Kerala. He has produced 22 Malayalam films under his production company Grihalakshmi Productions. As a producer, he has won two National Film Awards, five Kera ...

Antony Perumbavoor Malekudy Joseph Antony, better known as Antony Perumbavoor is an Indian film producer, distributor, cinema exhibitor and actor, who works in Malayalam film industry. He began his career as a chauffeur to Mohanlal in 1987 and started appearing ...

, and the film unit members.

Filming

''Casanovva'' started its shooting on 27 September 2010 and was scheduled to release in February 2011. However, the film has faced delays and its release date might be postponed. The first schedule was scheduled to finish in

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

by 12 December 2010. It has been reported that Mohanlal is giving prime importance to another film, ''

China Town A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Aust ...

'', which is leading ''Casanovva'' to a delayed release. The second schedule has started from the last week of April 2011 in

. The shooting at Dubai has ended by the first week of May 2011 and the next location is

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...

will start shooting from 14 September, Fourth schedule Start shooting from 20 October at

, The remaining song was shot in the Last schedule that commenced from 12 December at

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

, South Africa.

Release

Casanovva released theatres in India on 26 January 2012; 138 theatres in Kerala and 64 theatres outside Kerala making it the widest release for a Malayalam film, with simultaneous opening in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

and other Indian cities. The film released overseas in February 2012.

Reception

Critical response

The film received negative reviews from critics. * ''Moviebuzz'' from ''

Sify Sify Technologies Limited (formerly Satyam Infoway) is an Indian information and communications technology company providing end-to-end ICT solutions including telecom services, data center services, cloud & managed services, transformation in ...

'' called the film as "below average" while commented that "Casanovva perhaps has some nice moments but you would need real patience to spot them". * ''Nowrunning.com'' rated , describing the movie as a "wish-wash film". * ''

Rediff Rediff.com (stylized as ''rediff.com'') is an Indian news, information, entertainment and shopping web portal. It was founded in 1996. It is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices in Bangalore, New Delhi and New York City. , it had more than 300 e ...

'' gave the movie and said that "Casanovva disappoints big time". * ''Metromatinee.com'' review said "if Casanovva works even just a bit, it's because of Mohanlal". * ''IndiaGlitz.com'' called the film as "a stylish flick" and said that "Casanovva is one film that may satisfy the fans of the star and those who like technically sound, slickly made films". * ''Oneindia.in'' said "Even the glamorous looking babes in short and skimpy clothes could not save Casanovva from the disastrous plot of the film".

and

listed Casanovva #1 in their lists of Most Disappointing Malayalam Films of 2012.

Box office

The film had a large opening, collecting 2 crore, thanks to the 1,000 first-day shows, the highest ever for a Malayalam movie. However, as

word of mouth Word of mouth, or ''viva voce'', is the passing of information from person to person using oral communication, which could be as simple as telling someone the time of day. Storytelling is a common form of word-of-mouth communication where one pe ...

spread, the collections caused drop in the subsequent days. The film grossed above 30 cr from worldwide boxoffice.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack features four songs composed by

, Alphons Joseph and

, with lyrics by

Gireesh Puthenchery Girish Puthenchery (1961–2010) was a noted Malayalam Lyricist, Poet, Scriptwriter and Screenwriter. He was always referred to as the aristocratic lyricist of Malayalam who had a distinctive writing style of his own. He also served as the direc ...

Vayalar Sarath Chandra Varma Vayalar Sarath Chandra Varma (born 12 February 1960) is a noted malayalam lyricist and poet. He is the son of Malayalam Popular poet and lyricist late Vayalar Ramavarma. He made his debut in the malayalam film industry through the 1990 malayalam ...

, Rosshan and Sanjay. The background score of the film has been composed by

. The audio rights were acquired by Satyam Audio on a price of .

References

External links

* * {{Casanova 2010s Malayalam-language films Indian romance films Films shot in Dubai Films shot in Bangkok Films scored by Alphons Joseph Films directed by Rosshan Andrrews Films scored by Gopi Sundar Films scored by Gowry Lekshmi Aashirvad Cinemas films