Nadodikkattu

Nadodikkattu
DVD cover
Directed by	Sathyan Anthikkad
Produced by	Casino
Screenplay by	Sreenivasan
Story by	Siddique-Lal
Starring	Mohanlal Sreenivasan Thilakan Innocent Shobana Captain Raju Mamukkoya Sankaradi
Music by	Shyam Yusuf Ali Kechery (lyrics)
Cinematography	Vipin Mohan
Editing by	K. Narayanan
Distributed by	Century Films
Release date(s)	6 May 1987 (1987-05-06)
Running time	158 minutes
Country	India
Language	Malayalam

Nadodikattu (Malayalam: നാടോടിക്കാറ്റ്; English: Vagabond Wind) is a 1987 Malayalam comedy film directed by Sathyan Anthikkad and written by Sreenivasan. The story revolves around two impecunious young Malayali men, Ramdas aka Dasan (Mohanlal) and Vijayan (Sreenivasan) who not being able to find any job in Kerala, plan to go to Dubai to make their fortunes, but get deceived and they end up in Tamil Nadu.

Others actors include Thilakan, Shobhana, Innocent, Mamukkoya, Captain Raju, and Sankaradi. The film represents popular Malayalam cinema at its best and established the Mohanlal-Sreenivasan combination as one of its most memorable and bankable cinematic pairs. The story, dialogues, and characters have achieved cult status. The film was produced by Casino, a production company owned by Century Kochumon, Mohanlal, I.V. Sasi, Seema, and Mammootty. The music for the film was composed by Shyam.

Nadodikattu drew upon relevant social factors affecting Kerala such as poverty and unemployment. It gave way to two sequels, Pattanapravesham (1988) and Akkare Akkare Akkare (1990).

Plot

Nadodikattu opens by introducing the two protagonists, Ramdas aka Dasan (Mohanlal) and Vijayan (Sreenivasan), who are employed as ill-paid peons. A commerce graduate, and proud of that, Dasan frequently vents his frustration in having to serve lesser qualified superiors and having to settle with lesser than what he feels he deserves in life. Vijayan, his less educated, comic sidekick, is his roommate and sole friend. Their relationship is one full of tension, with Dasan adopting a superior stance on the account of his education and good looks, which fiercely rattles Vijayan. Several comic situations later in the film borrow from this aspect of their characters. Dasan frequently bosses over Vijayan to do all the household chores.

Dasan and Vijayan, hopeful of getting a better job, as soon as the new Managing director joins their company, wait for him to take charge. However, one day, on their way to work, they get involved in an unnecessary altercation with an unknown person. Dasan, in order to grab attention from a lady, abuses the person and pushes him into a puddle of rainwater. Vijayan punctures his car tires. But when they reach the workplace, they find out that the person that they had picked the fight with is their new managing director. Both vanish from the workplace and surface on the next day in disguises; Dasan wearing dark sunglasses and Vijayan wearing a long beard. Both try to convince their supervisor that they were seriously ill the previous day, but they are made to report to the new managing director. They manage to fool him initially and start work but the MD soon finds out the truth from old office photographs and both get thrown out from work.

Being jobless, their landlord(Sankaradi) convinces them to take bank loan and buy two cows. Dasan and Vijayan, upbeat about the new business, start dreaming of a bright future. However, they soon find out that the cows yield very little milk and the business fails. The bank contacts them for defaulting on the loan repayments. To escape, Vijayan sells the cows and arranges for them to go to UAE (Dubai) with whatever money they get. Gafoorkka (Mamukkoya) is an agent who promises to take them to the Gulf. Gafoorkka explains them that his dhow going to California will be diverted past the Dubai sea shore for them. Gafoorkka also instructs them to wear Arabic clothing thawb to fool the authorities. Dasan and Vijayan once again start dreaming about the bright and luxurious life ahead.

On reaching the sea shore, both change into the Arabic attire. Two strangers follow Dasan and Vijayan and forcefully exchange their suitcases. Confused, Dasan and Vijayan start exploring the city. They are surprised to see no Arabs in the city and soon find signboards in Tamil. They realize that they have been cheated by Gafoorkka who has off loaded them in the southern Indian city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Dasan and Vijayan check the suitcase and find drugs inside. They contact local police and hand over the suitcase.

Meanwhile, the strangers who are actually gang members of Ananthan Nambiar (Thilakan), smuggler and underworld don, find out that they were mistaken. Ananthan Nambiar believes that those in Arabic dress were members of the CIDs.

Dasan and Vijayan with the help of Dasan’s friend Balan (Innocent) get jobs at Ananthan Nambiar’s office. Dasan meets his colleague Radha (Shobana) who turns out to be their neighbour as well. But soon Dasan and Vijayan gets fired by Ananthan Nambiar thinking that they are undercover CIDs. On the road again, Vijayan tries to get a chance in movies. He visits noted film director I. V. Sasi’s home and meets Sasi’s wife, actress Seema. This scene is considered one of the funniest of the entire movie.

Dasan starts a small vegetable business with Radha’s help. A minor romance plot develops between Dasan and Radha. Meanwhile Ananthan Nambiar hires contract killer Pavanayi (Captain Raju) to finish off Dasan and Vijayan. But Pavanayi dies while trying to kill Dasan and Vijayan. This irks Ananthan Nambiar even more and makes him all the more paranoid about these two "CIDs".

As the story proceeds to climax, Dasan and Vijayan are called to a rundown factory by one of their other enemies, a well-connected businessman with political aspirations (Janardhanan) for an ostensible meeting, where he plans to liquidate them both. Dasan and Vijayan find themselves surrounded by Ananthan Nambiar’s gang as well, the latter also having selected the location to do a drug deal. However, the both gangs mistake each other as enemies and a mixed fight breaks out. Dasan and Vijayan manage to lock all others inside the building as police arrive and arrest everyone.

The movie concludes as Dasan and Vijayan gets selected into the State Police as CIDs and they along with Radha drive away in a Jeep.

Cast

• Mohanlal as Ramdas (aka Dasan)
• Srinivasan as Vijayan
• Shobana as Radha
• Thilakan as Ananthan Nambiar
• Innocent as Driver Balagopalan (aka Balettan)
• Janardhananas Kovai Venkatesan
• Captain Raju as Pavanayi
• Mamukkoya as Gafoor
• Meena as Radha's Mother
• Shanthakumari as Ramdas's Mother
• Sankaradi as Panicker
• Johny as Nambiar's henchman
• Bobby Kottarakkara as a broker
• Seema in a Guest role as herself
• I.V. Sasi in a Guest role as himself
• M.G. Soman in a Guest role as himself

Production

The film was produced by Casino Productions, a film production house co-owned by Century Kochumon, Mohanlal, I.V. Sasi, Seema and Mammootty.

The characters of Dasan and Vijayan were inspired from a story written by famous director duo Siddique and Lal who were working as assistant directors then. Sathyan Anthikkad narrated these characters to Sreenivasan who developed them into a screen play.

It was later revealed that the climax of the script was rewritten by Sreenivasan since Sathyan Anthikkad did not agree to the first version. They also had creative differences during climax shooting and even stopped talking to each other. However, being best of friends, they re-united during dubbing of the movie.

Reception

The movie was received very well critically as well as commercially. The story and screenplay is considered as one of the classics of mainstream malayalam movies, portraying a cross-section of Kerala's social issues at the time, primarily the struggle of unemployed malayalee youths and the means they pursue to find employment, such as seeking job opportunities in the Persian Gulf region, the scramble for formal educational qualifications (reflected through the character Dasan's boasting about his B.Com First Class degree), etc., through amusing comic dialogues. These dialogues are still remembered fondly by Malayalees today. This movie has been considered as the best example of the Mohanlal-Sreenivasan on-screen combination, spawning two sequels with the same duo, Pattanapravesham and Akkare Akkare Akkare.

The movie is considered as one of the most popular malayalam movies of all time. Even after more than 20 years, the movie draws huge audience whenever it is telecast on TV channels. The film was a huge box office grosser doing well not only in Kerala but other neighbouring states and the middle east as well.

External links

• Nadodikkattu at the Internet Movie Database
• Nadodikkattu's movie in Malayalam Movies