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Perilloor Premier League Season 1 Review: Disney+ Hotstar comes with its third Malayalam series, Perilloor Premier League, which is a political comedy. Directed by Praveen Chandran and written by
Deepu Pradeep, Perilloor Premier League aims to be in the same league as KG George's Panchavadi Palam with its political satire and Kunjiramayanam (Deepu Pradeep had writing credits on this) with its quirky characters within a rural setting. There is an eye-pleasing visual aesthetic to the show; the actors are all fine; the screenplay sparks wit at times; and some of the gags are quite hilarious. Yet, I couldn't keep thinking if Perilloor Premier League justifies its series treatment and could have used some more editing to instead be a movie. Kerala Crime Files Review: Aju Varghese and Lal’s Malayalam Series Is a Well-Knit Investigative Thriller That Loses Its Grip Near the End.
Perilloor Premier League centres around Malavika (Nikhila Vimal), the niece of the outgoing Perilloor Panchayat president Peethambaran (Vijayraghavan). She has two dreams: one to complete her PHd, and the other to marry her childhood crush, Sreekuttan (Sunny Wayne). Both go into the doldrums in just a matter of a few minutes. Sreekuttan, after an amiable pennu kaanal, decides to go for a better-looking girl (which, hilariously, backfires), and her uncle, who couldn't contest the next election, decides to make Malavika the next candidate against Keman Soman (Ashokan) and make her win. Even though she isn't exactly a resident of Perilloor.
Malavika doesn't want to be the president, though Peethambaran does every trick to make sure she becomes one. Meanwhile, Sreekuttan finds one marriage alliance after another flopping, as if a curse is following him. How these two get their happy endings, together or not, while driven by the crazy people of Perilloor is what the rest of the series is about.
Watch the Trailer of Perilloor Premier League:
It is hard to not dismiss the vibe of Kunjiramayanam throughout while watching the series, as the makers keep sticking to the vibe of the Basil Joseph comedy entertainer. I half-expected the actor-director to even make a cameo in there. I didn't mind initially, since I am a fan of Kunjiramayanam and I believe it is one of the funniest comedies made in Malayalam cinema in the last 10 years, a genre that the industry once dominated but is now struggling to eke out the laughs. Nothing wrong if you get influenced by better works, unless it becomes a bit too much.
The plot is mostly okay, as the screenplay relies on the situational comedy and the expertise of the actors here to help sail through. Some of the gags are truly funny. There are some old tricks used, like Sreekuttan's assistant who keeps messing up banner names, leading to some major guffaws. There are some sneaky but funny Easter eggs. I saw a Reddit post where a user pointed in a scene featuring Ashokan and Nikhila Vimal featured some books with titles, each spelling out 'Karnan, Napoleon, Bhagat Singh'; Prithviraj fans can easily figure out the joke here.
Perilloor premier league - director brilliance 😆😁
A conspiracy theorist geriatric becomes a perfect setup for an Illuminati joke. Even Sreekuttan's attempts to land a girl are also mildly amusing, especially the sequence where he attempts to dispel a 'superstition' to win over an atheist crush.
But there are times where the jokes just try too hard. Sample this - a character tells another that his wife has 'fourth stage'. When met with a shocked reaction, he clarifies, saying that she has 'fourth stage of suspicion'. Lame. The middle portions of Perilloor Premier League are particularly dragging - the whole 'boy goes missing but not exactly' episode felt forced into the show just for the sake of some sparse humour. Here's where I started feeling that Perilloor Premier League doesn't exactly have the material to sustain itself as a web-series, but if some fine-tuning was done, it could have been a much decent comedy movie. Unless, the makers really have the material for a second season, as the last scene aims to promise.
Similarly, the whole finale episode - while veering too close to Kunjiramayanam with its multiple olichottam - doesn't always land well with the gags. Some of the setups feel forced, but what felt like a particular letdown was how Perilloor Premier League tries to wrap up Malavika and Sreekuttan's story. It felt predictable and annoying; at no point, was I rooting for this couple. While Malavika's true happy ending should have had her achieving success beyond a successful love life, Sreekuttan didn't exactly endear himself enough to get to that happy ending.
But the cast is wonderful. Nikhila Vimal just lights up the screen with merely on her expressions itself, just see how she owns the podium even if her task is just to listen and react to people around her. I only wish the writing around her character had more panache than to be given that by a male character. Perilloor Premier League has one of Sunny Wayne's funniest performances, if not the funniest. Among the supporting cast, veterans Vijayaraghavan and Ashokan steal the show with immaculate ease. Particularly Ashokan, who is becoming a master of this OTT domain, with two back to back impressive showings, the other being in Master Peace.
I was little disappointed that his screentime isn't as much as other major players, but Aju Varghese put up a fine show as the village disruptor, Psycho Balan. The rest of the cast, including Sarath Sabha, Sajin Cherukayil, Shivaji Guruvayoor, Arun Pradeep, are all in great form.
Final Thoughts
Perilloor Premier League is a decent attempt at bringing comedy to OTT by Malayalam Cinema. There are quite a few witty moments and the actors do splendid work with their quirky characters. However, Perilloor Premier League doesn't exactly justify being extended over seven episodes with material on hand that could have worked better as a film, with some humour falling flat and some portions being a drag. Perilloor Premier League is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 08, 2024 08:43 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
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