The Eyes Review

The Eyes Review, What’s Behind: After a small hiatus, talented actress Meera Jasmine is back to acting with this original Malayalam film ‘Ms Lekha Tharoor Kaanunnathu’ dubbed into Telugu as ‘The Eyes’ presented by producer D Venkatesh. This scientific thriller hitting the screens on October 9th is specially previewed for media before the arrival date. Let us see how thrilling the film is, in ‘The Eyes’ review.

The Eyes Story: Chandra Lekha (Meera Jasmine) is a blind but high IQ and talented TV game show anchor. Luckily, Chandra Lekha is transplanted with eyes (retina) of a dead person whose identity is undisclosed. Though Lekha’s functional vision is restored to decent extent, she starts experiencing disturbing and aberrant visions including that of dead souls and extra sensory perception too. Here comes in Dr Ajay (Badri), a specialist in Vision Rehabilitation to help Lekha in overcoming the obstacles. However, Dr Ajay believes very late in Lekha when she begins to lose the mental peace attempting a suicide. From here on, Alex tries to decode the illusionary perceptions of Lekha which forward their investigation to her eye donor, the dead person Meena (Rosin Jolly).  

The Eyes Artists and Technicians: This film is a psychological, scientific thriller threaded mainly on the suspense, horror and curiosity around Meera Jasmine’s transplanted eyes. The idea sounds quite interesting like Geetha Krishna ‘Kokila’ or Neelakanta ‘Maya’ but director Shajiyem fumbled with execution. Movie crawls at snail pace with flashy thrills and horror moments splashed here and there. Sooraj and Shajiyem’s screenplay is quite a laggard with operative aridity. Instead of pivoting on the same central plot dealing with Lekha sufferings for a lengthy time span, Shajiyem could have laid emphasis on developing effective and supplemental sub plots to raise the curiosity. ‘The Eyes’ is still on advantageous stand just for its story line. 

At the same time, Kerala backdrop in the narration marred the Telugu nativity and Vennelakanti dialogues never bought in our Telugu flavor too. Locations selected might have suited the cause of story and treatment for Kerala audience. For Telugu viewers, this is hard to connect. Chandra Mouli’s cinematography is just mediocre while editing needs far more sharpness than what we are made to see. Ramesh Narayan’s musical score is just fine with overloaded noise. Technically, ‘The Eyes’ is a poor quality flick. Lastly production values of DV Cine Creations are praiseworthy.

On to performances, Meera Jasmine showed a strong screen presence and has sunk into the character of Lekha. Her sufferings and mental stigma facing the abnormal events in life are wonderfully presented in Meera’s face. In fact, she is the life and soul for ‘The Eyes.’ Even during the horror projection in apartment lift or hospital scenes, Meera delivered a perfect output. Badri is a pure Malayali face hard to harmonize with Telugu essence. Same applies to Rosin Jolly whose character is crucial in pushing the movie towards climax. Rest may not need big mention because of Malayali artists. 

The Eyes Rating Analysis: For Telugu audience restrained invariably to dryness in horror and thriller genre, ‘The Eyes’ can be called as a partially relieving experiment. If at all the film has been remade in Telugu version with necessary budget, technical amendments and sufficient casting, it can be a possible winner. Major drawback this movie suffers is missing with naturality while the crispness in run time and unfolding of story in second half are served advantages.   

Away from a conventional climax, Shajiyem showed a unique thought by closing the film with a different feel. Thanks to Meera Jasmine. She just nailed in with performance which is the best reason why patrons who love scientific thriller concepts can give a trial. 

‘The Eyes’ first half introduces central characters, acquaints us with the core plot bringing up various guess works about Lekha’s characterization. All those speculations are tossed to air as Shajiyem proposes a new theory putting forward with the new character of Meena. Though flashback appears to miss in proper justification yet this is a new reflection worth to leave the cinema hall on a satisfactory note.

Considering the possible advantages and drawbacks, ‘The Eyes’ can be an easy 2.5 star rating film which does not disappoint. Get into theatre with very least expectations, you can be left satisfied. Meera Jasmine is the only pulling force for audience to have a look at and producer D Venkatesh’s post release promotions along with mouth publicity will decide the commercial verdict when put in opposition against a monstrous ‘Rudhramadevi.’  

The Eyes Cinejosh Verdict: A Fair Psychological Thriller.

                                              The Eyes Cinejosh Rating: 2.5/5.0

                                                                                 Reviewed by Srivaas