It is common to ignore logic in order to laugh. We have seen it in many movies. But it is a pity to trample logic together to laugh like that. That fate happened to ‘Mark Antony’.
As far as the story is concerned.. it is a period sci-fi action revenge drama. But when it comes to the treatment, it should be considered a pure comedy movie. The story of this movie takes place between 1975 and 1995. In 75, a gangster named Antony dies in a gang war. Antony’s son, Mark, is taken in by Jackie and raised as a father. Mark’s uncontrollable anger towards his dead father. Due to him, he faces many insults, and in the end, even in the matter of love, problems arise because of his father. This increases the anger of the father Antony.
It is exactly at this time that he finds the time travel phone. He wants to go back in time through that phone, contact his father and curse him to get rid of all his anger. But after the phone call ends, he is shocked to learn some things about his mother’s death. He wants to save his father by any means. What happened after that? Did Mark survive his father Antony? Who is Jackie? What did he do in the past? What is Ekambaram’s role in this whole story? This is simply Mark Antony’s story.
Two Vishals and two SJ Suryas will be seen in it. Everything is father and son. If there is one element that brings a bit of novelty to this story, it is this element. And time travel is a very familiar concept to us. Moreover, a movie has also come out with Sharwanand as the hero. Before that, there were films like Playback and Awesome.
Mark Antony had the same concept. Otherwise, the director Achich Ravichandran tried to tell it as a complete comedy. That is the big minus of this movie. It’s sad to see the way he’s playing for comedy. At one stage, the director even ditched the story just for comedy.
Looking at Mark Antony’s periodic look, it seems that there is something. Once the time phone comes into the scene, we think the story will get interesting. But the director does not maintain the tempo anywhere in the story. The director, who put the interval card in the midst of some kind of confusion, showed the audience dots in the second half. The audience does not understand where the story is going. A confusion of not even knowing what is actually going on. The director has created confusion by cutting the episodes that should be told in detail for comedy.
When it comes to the second half, all the characters who were good till then turn bad. All bad characters turn good. If you think this is a confusion, the scenes like “Manadu” will come again and again and become annoying. In these episodes, Vishal is completely relieved. Having the experience of acting in such a film earlier, SJ Surya was excited. His comedy and dialogue delivery exploded there. And when it comes to the climax, it’s routine again.
The entire movie of 2 hours and 31 minutes does not make sense to the audience for the hour long story. It is a mistake if the director wants to direct the screenplay using his intelligence. At one stage he himself raised his hand.
It is appreciable that a different movie like Mark Antony is coming from Vishal who does routine stories and characters. But Vishal should have guided the director more carefully in the story of this movie. As for SJ Surya, he is the real hero of this movie. SJ Surya’s acting and comedy is the reason why the film was able to survive. And Sunil as always impressed in the role of Ekambaram. Ritu Varma is the heroine by name, but her role is like a guest role.
Technically some marks will fall. The background music sounds very loud. There is a lot of noise pollution in the movie. It is unnecessary to talk about the other departments one by one. They have worked for this film in the scope of whom. Producer Vinod Kumar has spent heavily.
Overall, an attempt was made to add science fiction and gangster elements to “Mark Antony”. But that effort sometimes feels stilted. Sometimes it just doesn’t feel right. But overall it’s a mess. You can count the heartwarming scenes on your fingers.
Bottom line – the mark hit by Maska
Rating: 2/5
By M Patnaik
