He does not have much time to put his life back on track. The character of Joji - his domineering father sees him as a total loser and cuts him no slack no matter what - is an epitome of desperation who will go to any length to wrest what he believes he is being unfairly deprived of.

It combines the couldn't-care-less air of a man who has nothing to lose with the ingrained self-preservation instincts of a loose-limbed layabout responding impulsively to a constantly ticking mind. The portrait that Faasil, markedly leaner than usual, conjures up presents fascinating behavioural asymmetries. The performance dazzles with its effortlessness and efficiency. He is the eponymous anti-hero who, as he admits in a scene to his near-comatose father, has failed to be the son that he should have been. The writing by Syam Pushkaran (who also scripted Pothan's 2016 directorial debut, Maheshinte Prathikaaram) mines the dramatic bandwidth of the material to perfection - it yields an austere probe into the crooked mind of a wily wastrel who is driven by vaulting personal ambition to resort to destructive acts. The result is deceit, conspiracy, murder and a brood torn asunder. Stealth, subterfuge and stowed-away secrets overrun the household. The taut screenplay favours the granular over the grand, the precise over the spectacular. He takes matters into his hands unmindful of considerations of morality or filial fealty.Д¬riminal intent and its repercussions play out in the home of a patriarch whose demise triggers fissures that quickly gnaw into the vitals of the family. The scale and scope of the original play are deliberately whittled down and coiled within the confines of the psyche of one man who is convinced that he deserves better. The examination of human frailty in Joji is anything but Shakespearean in the conventional sense. The fallout of their errant thoughts and deeds isn't instant, but when it does hit home it takes an inevitably heavy toll. Three sons of a wealthy plantation owner are in a tearing hurry to inherit their respective share of the property. In his third collaboration with Faasil (after Maheshinte Prathikaaram and Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum), Pothan crafts a low-intensity drama about the wages of unabashed covetousness.

In a magnificently tempered lead act, Fahadh Faasil augments the heft of the storytelling. The sinewy structure bestows on Dileesh Pothan's Malayalam film, streaming on Amazon Prime, a degree of finesse that enhances its exploration of the banality of greed and self-serving violence.

Shakespeare is rarely as starkly bare-bones as it is in Joji, which reworks Macbeth in an admirably original no-frills style. Cast: Fahadh Faasil, Unnimaya Prasad, Baburaj, Shammi Thilakan, Sunny PN, Joji Mundakayam

Joji malayalam movie