A short animation clip that accompanies the title sequence of
Bro Daddy gives a hint of the kind of film that one is in for. In those few minutes, filled with some stale jokes, we are reminded multiple times of the very small age gap between John Kattadi (Mohanlal) and his son Eesho John Kattadi (Prithviraj). If that fact did not still get registered in your head, there is the rest of the movie where constant reminders of the same are served.

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John and Anna (Meena) had married quite young, and now are eager for their son Eesho, an advertising professional, to get married. Eesho meanwhile is in a relationship with Anna (Kalyani Priyadarshan), the daughter of John’s best friend Kurian (Lalu Alex) and Elsy (Kaniha). But what could have been an easy alliance is complicated with two ‘accidents’ that threaten to derail all their plans.

In his second directorial after
Lucifer , Prithviraj chooses to scale down his ambition quite a bit to make a light-hearted family drama. The script by Sreejith.N and Bibin Maliekal draws on a subject that has been tackled earlier in films like
Pavithram and
Badhaai Ho , but here they attempt to give it a slightly different packaging. The film seems to be placed in a social setting where abortion is almost considered a sin, that it feels like a counterpoint to recent films like
Sara’s , which took a more progressive stand on such issues.

Much of the script is woven around the camaraderie between the father-son duo and their attempts to solve the mess. But the film does not have much of a conflict that could make for a gripping narrative, the only one being that Kurian should not come to know of the ‘accidents’. Almost the entire second half is written in such a way as to delay the inevitable, with most of the scenes being predictable from miles away.

A separate comedy track involving event manager Happy (Soubin Shahir) further drags down the narrative, without managing any laughs. Mohanlal appears to be more at ease and seems to be enjoying the role, compared to most of his recent outings. Some of the humour involving him does work, while some other jokes in the movie are tasteless or stale, and fall flat. Quite a few of the jokes are written around the names of the characters.

Whether by design or by accident, the aesthetics of the whole film mirrors that of an advertisement with its settings in carefully-curated, prim and proper upper class homes. That one of the protagonists is an advertising professional and a key plot point is regarding an advertisement, also makes one wonder whether all the artificial, curated look of the film was intentional.

A weak, predictable script makes
Bro Daddy an underwhelming experience with some bright spots.

Bro Daddy is currently streaming in Disney+ Hotstar

Emotions were flying high on the set of “Top Gun: Maverick.” 

Val Kilmer was back 36 years after the classic original film was released to make a brief cameo in the new sequel, out May 27, as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky alongside his old onscreen rival Tom Cruise as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. 

In the poignant scene, filmed in front of a small group of crew and family, the former hotshots touchingly reunite in the office of Iceman, who’s now a commander in the US Navy. The affection we see on the stars’ faces, sources say, didn’t take much acting from either man. 

“I was on set, I saw it live and it was extraordinary,” Kilmer’s daughter, singer and actor Mercedes Kilmer, 30, told The Post. “It means a lot to my dad as he’s very proud of that film. This is what he loves to do.” 

She added of the experience of watching her famous father, now 62, who first played Ice at 26 years old: “It was trippy, and very special for my dad to be on set with all of his friends who made this movie when they were my age.” 

Making the day especially moving for the Kilmer family and his co-star was the fact that the actor’s “Maverick” appearance came after his difficult two-year battle with throat cancer, which saw him lose his voice. 

Shocked fans of the actor got their first glimpse of his health struggles in the revealing documentary “Val,” which premiered last summer. 

They saw a very different Kilmer, who has been cancer free for six years now, yet has endured a treacherous road. He had an emergency tracheotomy, an incision into his windpipe to allow him to breathe, which forced him to use a feeding tube to eat, and caused him to mostly lose the ability to vocalize. 

In “Maverick” his sound had to be recreated using archival recordings and sophisticated technologies. 

Kilmer’s brave struggles are a world away from those carefree early days when the Hollywood heartthrob’s life was all abs and aviator sunglasses. 

Kilmer was born and raised in California, where he would make meticulously detailed short films in the backyard with his brother Wesley.

“They were really quite creative,” Leo Scott, who co-directed “Val” with Ting Poo, told The Post. “It was always there, you can see it in the early footage.”

After Wesley, his best friend, died of an epileptic seizure at age 15, the shattered Kilmer moved to New York to study acting at Juilliard. 

He dabbled in Shakespeare onstage, but got his big break in the 1984 film “Top Secret!”. Soon after, he became a marquee name with 1986’s “Top Gun,” which made the world fall in love with Kilmer, Cruise and bespectacled Anthony Edwards as “Goose.” 

Ting Poo and Leo Scott, the directors of the hit documentary “Val” told The Post on the original “Top Gun”, there were “no rules.”

“He took a camcorder with him and he filmed his whole experience. I don’t think camcorders were allowed this time around! But it was very hush hush that he was going to be in the sequel, he wouldn’t tell us,” said Poo.

Scott added: “We had access to this archive from his early school art work — he and his brothers at a very young age were making mini movies on film, where his brother Wesley, who passed away, was directing and Val was acting. They were really quite creative, it was always there, you can see it in the early footage. Val got a camcorder before he was even famous.

“He was documenting his process too as an actor — there are so many tapes of him practicing so many roles over and over again, he had this incredible energy and determination. He was practicing Hamlet and saying by the time he was 26/27 he was going to playing Hamlet on stage. He did this for years, people don’t realize that he’s a trained Shakespearean actor.”

Poo added, “He’s a very spiritual person, he has no regrets about anything. He thinks positively about the future.”

Although it’s the role he’s most known for, Kilmer wasn’t originally enthusiastic about doing “Top Gun.” 

“I didn’t want the part,” he wrote in his 2020 memoir “I’m Your Huckleberry.” “I didn’t care about the film. The story didn’t interest me. My agent, who also represented Tom Cruise, basically tortured me into at least meeting [director] Tony Scott.” 

Kilmer agreed to go, but did his best to blow his chances. At the audition, he “showed up looking the fool. . . . I read the lines indifferently.” Yet after he landed the part, he found that he loved playing Iceman. 

And the ladies found that they loved Kilmer. 

A bona fide heartthrob, the actor was in high demand romantically. 

He has had a string of notable girlfriends including Daryl Hannah, Cindy Crawford and Angelina Jolie. He dated Cher in the early ‘80s before he met his future ex-wife. 

That was British actress Joannne Whalley, the eventual mother of his children Mercedes and Jack, who he first encountered on the set of the fantasy adventure film “Willow” in 1987. Smitten, the couple wed in 1988. 

They worked together in 1989 in “Kill Me Again,” but Whalley filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences in 1995. Although she sued him for child support for Jack in 2011, they are on good terms today, Mercedes said. 

He continued to make major pictures, including playing Jim Morrison in 1991’s “The Doors” and as the Caped Crusader in Joel Schumacher’s controversial “Batman Forever” in 1995, among many smaller titles. 

An enthusiast of the craft of acting, he later returned to the stage. It was while Kilmer was donning a white wig as Mark Twain in his touring one-man show, called “Citizen Twain” in 2014, that he discovered a lump in his throat. 

After waking up one night in a pool of his own blood, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. The actor wrote in his autobiography that when he received an emergency tracheotomy, he “presumed this was the day of my death.” 

A lifelong Christian Scientist, he has spoken about his decision to have chemotherapy despite it going against his religious beliefs. 

He told the New York Times Magazine in 2020 that he at first believed he would find a cure by relocating and working with his practitioner, a kind of spiritual adviser, to help pray his fear away so that his body would no longer “manifest outwardly what can be diagnosed as a malady.” 

But his kids and loved ones disagreed and pushed him to get treatment. “I just didn’t want to experience their fear, which was profound,” he said. 

“I would’ve had to go away, and I just didn’t want to be without them.” 

His former girlfriend Cher then came to the rescue. The “If I Could Turn Back Time” singer arranged for her old beau to be treated at the renowned David Geffen School of Medicine, where he underwent chemotherapy and radiation for two months. 

Afterwards, he lived at the singer’s guest house in Malibu, writing in his book, “Once Cher works her way inside your head and heart, she never leaves.” 

Although Cher supported Kilmer during his cancer battle, she’s not believed to have paid for his treatment, according to sources. 

“I can’t speak without plugging this hole [in his throat]. You have to make the choice to breathe or to eat,” he said in the 2021 documentary “Val’” which was produced by Mercedes, alongside his son Jack, 26, a musician and actor who appeared in the 2013 film “Palo Alto.” 

The emergency tracheotomy and subsequent radiation and chemotherapy left the actor with a feeding tube and speaking difficulties. 

Mercedes said his speech has improved since then. 

“He’s doing really well,” she said. “He can speak, but it’s really raspy.” 

On the mend, Kilmer was desperate to appear in the long-awaited “Maverick.” 

“It didn’t matter that the producers didn’t contact me,” he wrote. “As the Temptations sang in the heyday of Motown soul, ‘ain’t too proud to beg.’” 

Ali Alborzi, Kilmer’s long-time business partner, applauded his gumption. 

“Val and Tom have been friends for 36 years, to make another ‘Top Gun’ movie that was so important to both of them,” he told The Post. “Without Val in it, would seem very incorrect.” 

Kilmer’s role secured, the production team and London-based AI firm Sonantic then recreated his voice through AI so he could once again act. 

“They were able to dub him with his own voice, which is amazing,” said Mercedes. “It’s such a technical feat, being able to engineer his voice that way, that it’s an extension of the technical feat of the film.” 

As thrilling as his comeback is, Kilmer did not make it to any “Top Gun: Maverick” premieres — in San Diego on May 4, at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday night, or at the royal performance in London, attended by Prince William and Kate Middleton on Thursday night. Wanting to avoid crowds due to the pandemic, he remained at home in the Hollywood Hills, Mercedes confirmed. 

Jack and Mercedes walked the red carpet at Cannes on France’s Côte d’Azur in their dad’s place. 

Variety said that the French premiere, “an overwhelming response came when Val Kilmer, who starred as Cruise nemesis Iceman in the original film, appeared in a scene with Cruise. The screening ended with a five-minute standing ovation from the crowd.” 

Kilmer’s still got big plans for his career. He has continued working and is busy with his artistic pursuits tied into his gallery/creative incubator HelMel Studios in Los Angeles, as well as continuing to act. In 2020 he co-starred with Mercedes in the thriller “Paydirt”. 

“I never underestimate my dad. He’s a very resilient person, nothing surprises me,” she said. 

“Now that he has his voice [thanks to technology] ,he can absolutely take on more projects. 

“Some people are like ‘Oh, I have a cold, I’m not going to act today, but he really doesn’t let anything stop him,” she said. 

“I wish he would take a break!”

When Peter wakes up in his bed after a terrifying accident, he is stalked throughout the house by his mother, Annie, now possessed by the demon, Paimon. She can be seen crawling around on the ceiling, watching Peter, but the room is so dark that you may have missed her the first time around.

A new era has dawned in Tamil cinema. Lokesh Kanagaraj, the four-film-old filmmaker, has opened the gates to a new Cinematic Universe that hints at wondrous possibilities with Vikram as the first big step. There has never been a filmmaker before Lokesh to steer the conversation around delivering a true cinematic experience in the right direction. Before Lokesh, cinematic experience meant grand ideas and needless adornments to massage a star’s male crowd. But this filmmaker is committed to giving you an experience of a certain standard. 

There’s a certain taste, visual flavour and a certain style to the way he writes and directs. He accomplished this cinema experience with ease in the terrific Kaithi, a pure-genre film that had the flavour of a wholesome Hollywood thriller. Like Speed on drugs. He gave us a tease of this new Cinematic Universe in Master. About the Vijay-starrer, I had written in the review, “This mouthwatering possibility, to tie two different films of two different eras, is fascinating — in theory. And if Master is what Lokesh could do to a Vijay film, one smiles at the thought of what one could expect from him for his vaathi, in Vikram.” This mouthwatering possibility, unfortunately, still remains a theory. For, what felt organic and thrilling in Kaithi, feels weak and forced in Vikram. 

Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas is a cinema experience, as is Marvel’s Avengers, as some would argue. Lokesh, a fan of Scorsese, would earlier take the route his masters took. But with Vikram, he plays it safe and goes by the demands of the market. For, the world of Vikram is an extension of Kaithi and picks up three months after the events of the latter film. Trying to create a franchise isn’t the problem. The question has more to do with the whys.

Do not get me wrong. Everything about Vikram is good — except for Kamal Haasan. Why do you even need the man for this film? Why make a film with Kamal when you don’t even get to register and feel his presence? Why Vikram (1986) ? It could have been any other film. Of course, we get the logical reasoning behind using the brand Vikram. But does Kamal’s original film have any relevance to the new one? Absolutely not. You could have shown Kamal as an Agent and the film still would have worked big time. The new Vikram could have still been a standalone film where Amar (Fahadh Faasil who is absolutely terrific) carries on the legacy of Vikram, like in the James Bond movies. The open-ended climax hints at that possibility. As fans of the original film and Kamal Haasan, you feel let down. The disappointment comes from the fact that Lokesh has failed to realise the true potential of his idol — both as an actor and action star.  Nevertheless, there is a lot to chew on.

For an action-thriller to click, it has to be a well-oiled machine. Vikram is that machine. Right from the start, it is a thrill-a-minute ride with a battalion of characters. As you might know, the screenplay for the film was born out of Kamal’s idea — of a protagonist. Throughout the leisurely-paced first half, which is densely-packed with lots of layers, it is for the search of a protagonist. As a writer-director, Lokesh does a neat job in the world-building exercise and sustains the intrigue. The film does leave you confused after a point and you try to wrap your head around the proceedings, given what happens in that shocking yet brave opening sequence. 

Vikram has an unusual opening. Definitely unusual for a Kamal Haasan film. It begins right with ‘Pathala Pathala’ song, which feels like an afterthought that was inserted just for the sake of it. Except for this oddly-placed song, the film gets going and there is not a single wasted moment in the long-drawn first half. Lokesh must be as much a fan of Christopher Nolan as he is of Scorsese. A lot of scenes remind you of Nolan’s film. We, in fact, get a Tenet-like sequence and a Bane-like voiceover in this one. There are lots of references to masks and unmasking of identities. The man in-charge of this unmasking is Amar, who heads an uncounted team of Black Squads. They are assigned by the Police Department to investigate a series of high-profile murders in the department that leads to one man Santhanam (Vijay Sethupathi, who is, of course, terrific). Santhanam runs a drug empire. He faces the heat from a recent drug bust, which is a hark back to Kaithi. Anything more would spoil the fun.

Movies about RAW agents and their sacrifices have rightly become a sub-genre. We have seen it a thousand times. Yet, something about it continues to allure us. In this case, it has Kamal reprising his quasi-Bond character, Vikram. The tone and mood of Vikram is quite tense like Kaithi. And like the latter, there are plenty of whistle-worthy moments featuring small characters who take you by a delightful surprise and score. There is a particular scene in the second half that none of us saw coming. Of course, there are throwbacks to old Tamil songs. My favourite involves the ‘Kalviya Selvama Veerama’ song from Saraswati Sabatham and has Vijay Sethupathi raising his hand rather mockingly.

Vikram truly comes alive post the adrenaline-filled interval scene. Action is Lokesh’s forte and the second-half has impressive stunts (stunt directors are Anbariv masters) and a superior camera work by Girish Gangadharan of Jallikattu fame. Yet, there is something missing. And that something leads us back to Kamal. You could quite see Lokesh’s struggle not knowing what to do with Kamal’s character as Vikram. There is not enough beef to feed the lion — in this case, there are three brilliant actors. The screenplay issue must have been this: Amar has to find the Ghost, through which he finds Santhanam. But for Vikram to go all guns blazing, it needed a stronger reason and not just the personal loss. Even in the old film, Vikram was not a sentimental character. And Lokesh yet again suffers in the sentimental scenes. 

That brings us to this: no other actor in Indian cinema can cry like Kamal Haasan. Period. You cannot contest that. What’s slender in the writing, Kamal deadlifts with his acting prowess. Just watch the man where he is looking at a baby misty-eyed, you cannot help but feel a lump in your throat. That is the kind of actor we are talking about. Somewhere, you wish it was a 60% Lokesh and 40% Kamal film.

Vijay Sethupathi, on the other hand, is remarkable as Santhanam. Perhaps after a long time, we see the effort he has put in to play a character and not be weighed down by the Sethupathi-ness. But unlike his Bhavani in Master, Santhanam remains wooden for the most part. His character is defined by his actions, but that doesn’t mean he is powerful.

There are two heroes in Vikram: Fahadh Faasil and Anirudh. When there are no guns or deafening explosions, Anirudh’s background score does the talking. The entire film belongs to Fahadh. He is magnetic as Amar and a scene-stealer. In the film’s ending portion, there is a hint at extending the universe with Suriya and Fahadh. Thinking about what that film might be is exciting.   

Pointing out the basics: Kamal has done it all. Vikram, for him, is like chewing betel leaf and spitting the stem out. But there is a big takeaway in Kamal’s decision to step back and shed his superstar image at this stage in his career. It feels like Kamal has finally made up his mind about the future and where he is headed. He wants to do what Sivaji Ganesan did in the later stage of his career: pave the way for youngsters and watch them grow. But it is also a reminder that the chair Sivaji sat on and later Kamal, continues to be empty.

Vikram is currently running in theatres

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