''Shylock'' is a 2020 Indian

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...

-language

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 Ajay Vasudev. The film stars Mammootty,

Rajkiran J. Mohideen Abdul Khadar, known by his stage name Rajkiran, is an Indian actor, producer and director, who has acted in more than 30 Tamil films. Early life Rajkiran was born as J. Mohideen Abdul Khadar on 16 March 1959 at Keelakarai into a Mu ...

Meena Meena () is a sub-group of Bhils. They speak Meena language. They started adopting the Brahmin worship system. Its name is also transliterated as ''Meenanda'' or ''Mina''. Historians claim that they belong to the Matsya tribe. They got the st ...

, Siddique,

Kalabhavan Shajon Shaji John, professionally credited by his stage name Kalabhavan Shajohn is an Indian actor, director and comedian who works primarily in Malayalam cinema. He started his career as a mimicry artist in Kalabhavan, Kochi. Making his debut in 199 ...

Baiju Santhosh Baiju Santhosh Kumar, commonly referred to as Baiju, is an Indian actor who works in Malayalam films. He began his acting career in 1981, as a child artist in the film '' Maniyan Pilla Adhava Maniyan Pilla''. Since then he has acted in more tha ...

Bibin George Bibin George (born 29 March 1988) is an Indian actor and scriptwriter known for his works primarily in the Malayalam cinema, Malayalam film industry. Bibin started his journey in the movie industry by co-writing the movie ''Amar Akbar Anthony (20 ...

John Vijay John Vijay (born 20 November 1976) is an Indian actor who plays supporting roles in Tamil films. He has also worked in a few Malayalam, Telugu, Hindi and Kannada films. Career John Vijay did his M.Sc. in Visual Communication from Loyola College ...

and

Hareesh Kanaran Hareesh Perumanna , known by his stage name Hareesh Kanaran, is an Indian comedian and film actor who appears in Malayalam films. He is best known for his stock character Jaliyan Kanaran which first appeared in ''Comedy Festival'', a comedy r ...

. Shylock is a slang term for a

loan shark A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high interest rates, has strict terms of collection upon failure, and generally operates outside the law. Description Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot reasonably ...

. The film is written by debutants Aneesh Hameed and Bibin Mohan and was released on 23 January 2020.

Plot

Boss aka '' Shylock'' is a ruthless

moneylender In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...

who provides money to a film producer Prathapa Varma to produce a film, but Prathapa Varma cheats Boss by not repaying the money, which enrages him. Varma is the friend of a corrupted Police Commissioner Felix John. Boss creates a ruckus on Prathapa Varma's film sets and abduct the film director, due to which Varma sends men to kill Boss. Boss defeats everyone and mocks Prathapa and Felix. Felix charges a fake case that Prathapa Varma's son Adithya Varma has gone missing and Boss is the kidnapper. The police arrest Boss but a piece of video evidence proves that Adithyan is celebrating

Holi Holi (), also known as the Festival of Colours, the Festival of Spring, and the Festival of Love,The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) p. 874 "Holi /'həʊli:/ noun a Hindu spring festival ...". is an ancient Hindu religious festival ...

Nagpur Nagpur (pronunciation: aːɡpuːɾ is the third largest city and the winter capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the 13th largest city in India by population and according to an Oxford's Economics report, Nagpur is projected to ...

with Felix's daughter Jewel. Felix is forced to release Boss. On the way home, Varma confronts Boss and demands to know the whereabouts of Adithyan. After the video was telecasted, Boss reveals that he kidnapped and killed Adithyan by using Varma's car claiming it as an accident. During Adhitya's funeral, Felix and Prathapa Varma doubt that Boss was part of a plot that they did before. Boss confirms this. His associates ask him, but Boss doesn't respond and receives a call which leads Boss going to a house where an old man named Ayyanar wakes up. His associates question him once again. Boss reveals that his real name is Devan and that Ayyanar is his brother and reveals his past: 7 years ago: Devan used to live with his rich family. Devan's cousin Velumurugan is in love with a woman named Poonkuzhali. Poonkuzhali's family declined their relationship due to caste differences. Devan and Ayyanar fights Poonkuzhali's elder brother Rangan and his henchman and convinces Poonkuzhali to marry Devan's cousin. Rangan is angered by this and teams up with Felix and Prathapa Varma to get revenge on Devan and his family. Devan has to go to

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 ...

for a few days. During this time, a producer asks Ayyanar for money. Ayyanar agrees, but on the condition that Devan, who aspires to be an actor should act in the movie. Rangan, Rangan's brother, Felix, Prathapa Varma and their henchmen arrive at Ayyanar's house and kill the producer and fights with Ayyanar. Rangan kills Ayyanar's wife, Lakshmi. In revenge, Ayyanar kills Rangan by stabbing him. Rangan's brother realizes that Felix and his men were cheating him and Rangan and thus he gets killed by Felix. Adhityan and his henchman kill all the family members except Ayyanar who is stabbed. Assuming him to be dead, Felix and Prathapa Varma leave. Devan returns that night, only to find his family members dead. He finds that Ayyanar is still alive and takes him to a hospital. The doctor says that everyone except Ayyanar is dead but Ayyanar will be

cripple A cripple is a person or animal with a physical disability, particularly one who is unable to walk because of an injury or illness. The word was recorded as early as 950 AD, and derives from the Proto-Germanic ''krupilaz''. The German and Dutch w ...

d for life. Present: Felix and Prathapa Varma also learn about Boss's past. Boss kidnaps Prathapa's and Felix's friend Chacko and Felix's son Joel. They find Chacko heavily drunk and strapped to a chair and Joel murdered. Chacko provokes Felix by telling that Boss will kill everyone and they can't do anything. Enraged, Felix kills Chacko. Boss calls him and challenges Prathapa Varma and Felix for a final confrontation in his old house. They both agree to the challenge and reaches the venue where Boss overpowers their henchman and subdues Felix. Ayyanar stabs Felix to death while Boss kills Prathapa Varma. With no one else to trouble him, Boss takes care of Ayyanar continuing his business as Shylock.

Cast

* Mammootty as Boss/Vaalu *

as Ayyanar *

as Lakshmi Ayyanar * Siddique as Commissioner Felix John *

Kalabhavan Shajohn Shaji John, professionally credited by his stage name Kalabhavan Shajohn is an Indian actor, director and comedian who works primarily in Malayalam cinema. He started his career as a mimicry artist in Kalabhavan, Kochi. Making his debut in 1 ...

as Prathapa Varma *

as Balakrishna Panicker *

as Ganapathi *

as Velmurugan *

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. ...

as Ram * Ameenul Irfan as Raheem * Arthana Binu as Poonkuzhali Velmurugan *

as Rangan *

Ajai Vasudev Ajai Vasudev is a film director active in the Malayalam film industry Malayalam cinema is an Indian film industry of Malayalam-language motion pictures. It is based in Kochi, Kerala, India. The films produced in Malayalam cinema are kno ...

as Thotta Raja * Rafi as Chacko * John Kaippallil as Adithya Varma * Vinu Chemmalakuzhy as Joel Felix * Jaise Jose as Isaac * Udayakrishna as himself * Ambika Mohan as Meenakshi Ammal *

Prasanth Alexander Alexander Prasanth is an Indian actor who primarily appears in Malayalam films. He made his debut through the 2002 movie '' Nammal''. Career Prasanth began his career as an anchor of Crazy Records on Asianet. He made his acting debut in 2002 ...

as Broker Kumar *

G. Marimuthu G. Marimuthu is an Indian film director and actor, who has worked in the Tamil film industry. After making his debut as a director with '' Kannum Kannum'' (2008), he has gone on to make other ventures including '' Pulivaal'' (2014) and feature ...

as Chithappa *

Rajalakshmi Thakkathu Amayankottu Rajalakshmi (June 2, 1930 – January 18, 1965), better identified as Rajalakshmi, was an Indian novelist, short story writer and poet of Malayalam literature. She was the author of three novels, two poetry anthologies a ...

as Chinnamma * Jayaprakash as Doctor *

Hareesh Peradi Hareesh Peradi is an Indian actor who predominantly acts in Malayalam and Tamil films. Career He is also a well-known theatre artist in Kerala, having made a mark in stage and also in TV and cinema. Even though he has acted in 36 films so far ...

as Menon (Cameo) *

Santhosh Keezhattoor Santhosh Keezhattoor (a.k.a. Maranan, will die in 9/10 movies) is an Indian film & theatre actor. He had acted in many leading and supportive roles. He won acclaim though doing character roles. Before entering into the film industry, he was wo ...

as Cinema Secretary * Jewel as Tejal * Jai Vishnu as News Reporter * Binu Adimaly as Saji, production controller * Laya as Felix John's wife * Joel Jo George as Chitappa's son * Ramya Krishnan as Neelambari (archive footage in "Kanne Kanne Veesathe")

Production

Principal photography of the film began on 9 August 2019. Mammootty joined the sets a week after the shoot started. The film marks the debut of actor Raj Kiran in the Malayalam film. Raj Kiran and Meena who had earlier worked in ''

Pasamulla Pandiyare ''Pasamulla Pandiyare'' is a 1997 Indian Tamil language film directed by T. P. Gajendran and produced by Kalyani Murugan. The film stars Rajkiran, Meena, and Roja, while M. N. Nambiar, Nizhalgal Ravi, Alex, Sangili Murugan, Vadivelu, and Sent ...

'' (1997) is acting together after 23 years. Actor Bibin George was chosen for an important role. The art direction of the film was done by Girish Menon.

Release

The film was scheduled for release on 23 January 2020 along with a Tamil dubbed version named Kuberan. The film's Tamil version along with a Telugu dub released as ''Kuberan'' on the Aha streaming platform.

Dubbed versions

The film was dubbed and released in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

as Kuberan. Later, the film was dubbed in

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

and

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

and released with the same title.

Music

The film's music is 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 ...

. The soundtrack was launched on 18 January 2020.

Reception

Box office

The film was released on more than 1200 screens worldwide. The film received mixed reviews, but was commercial success, and collected in its first weekend. The film collected within 5 days of its release.It completed 400 special shows in 4 days and first ever 4000 housefull shows in mollywood. The film collected over ₹70 crore at the Worldwide box office against a budget of ₹12 crore.

Critical response

This film received mixed reviews. Sajin Shrijith of

The New Indian Express ''The New Indian Express'' is an Indian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper published by the Chennai-based Express Publications. It was founded in 1932 as ''The Indian Express'', under the ownership of Chennai-based P. Varadarajulu Naid ...

gave 3.5 out of 5 stars stating "Shylock is an exuberant celebration of Mammootty, the star, that attempts to milk his charisma to the fullest". Anjana George of

The Times of India ''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...

gave 3 out of 5 stars stating "For the fans of 'mega star Mammootty', Shylock is a treat and for the followers of actor Mammootty, this is a complete 'no'." Cris from ''

The News Minute ''The News Minute'' is an Indian digital news platform based in Bangalore, Karnataka. It was founded by Dhanya Rajendran, Chitra Subramaniam and Vignesh Vellore in 2014. Apart from Karnataka, it also has bureaus in the states of Telangana, An ...

'' rated 3.5 out of 5 and wrote: "Yet another Mammootty 'mass' movie that numbs the mind. It is running out of boring descriptions for itself". Manoj Kumar R. of ''

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split be ...

'' rated 1 out of 5 star and said: "You know this story. You know how things would pan out. And you know what happens to the bad guys even before the film arrives at its depressingly predictable climax".

Anna M. M. Vetticad Anna Mercy Mathews Vetticad, commonly known as Anna M. M. Vetticad, is an Indian film critic and journalist. She has been in the field of journalism since 1994. Vetticad has also hosted her own interview show, ''Star Trek'', on Headlines Today ...

of ''

Firstpost ''Firstpost'' is an Indian online news and media website. The site is a part of the Network 18 media conglomerate owned by Reliance Industries, which also runs CNN-News18 and CNBC-TV18. The ''Network 18'' group was originally owned by Ragh ...

'' rated 0.25 out of 5 stars and wrote that "To compensate perhaps for the absolute lack of novelty in the script, camerawork and all else here, multiple references are made to other films and their Tamil superstars.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 10644282 2020 films 2020s Malayalam-language films Indian action thriller films Films scored by Gopi Sundar 2020 action thriller films Films directed by Ajai Vasudev