Spoilers ahead…
Tovino Thomas gets the most fully fleshed-out character, and even a love interest – and later, he gets to do the biggest saving acts. He is both a star and a character actor here.
There are two ways to make a movie about a large-scale disaster. One is to reduce the scale, like Lakshmy Ramakrishnan did in the exquisitely moving and understated House Owner. The story revolves around the 2015 Chennai floods, but it remains an intimate narrative about just one couple, played by character actors. By focusing on a tiny part, you get a sense of the whole. The other approach is seen in Aashiq Abu’s superbly written, superbly crafted medical thriller Virus, where a galaxy of stars come together to battle the Nipah virus. Jude Anthany Joseph’s 2018: Everyone is a Hero follows the Virus model, and here, a galaxy of stars come together to tackle the devastating Kerala floods. But unlike the former film, the director and his co-writer Akhil P Dharmajan go for the broad strokes, with dashes of hysterical melodrama. 2018 does not rise to the levels of Virus, but on its own, it is a solid account of a tragic time.
You can read the rest of the review here:
https://www.galatta.com/malayalam/movie/review/2018-everyone-is-a-hero/
And you can watch the video review here:
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mvky
June 12, 2023
Overall a good movie. Maybe better on big screen. Watched it on sony. There are many subplots and all connected to the main plot. The flood scenes were caught well and the heavily pregnant lady scene and scenes like attracting helicopter by torchlights were for the masses who made it a blockbuster. Rescuing the family of four which included the injured boy was innovative and heart stopping. Unexpected ending which did not register well. Of course tragedies make a film more poignant but I wanted it to end differently. It was not Titanic but our own story. Sad that it did not do well in the hindi belt.
And the blind man act by Indran was sadly beautiful.There is so much beauty in tragedies which is inexplicable. Seems contradictory.
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mvky
June 13, 2023
Water movies. 2018 is a water movie. Titanic is also one. The Swimmers is also a water movie in a way. It is about Mardini sisters from Syria. Feel good movie. We are not shown sordid details of refugees. The overcrowded little boat bobbing up and down in the sea, the evening sun disappearing while the waters turn dark and ominous. This movie is about refugees, Angela Merkel’s kindness, about mostly good people, about Olympics, refugee Olympics, swimming, good looking people and a message about the refugee issue at the end. About modern Syrians who do not wear hijab and can crack jokes, progressive fathers and sweet treatment which camouflaged the bitterness associated with refugees and their problems. Maybe at the beginning refugees had it easy and over time it must have become hard which ultimately led to Brexit.
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