Marco movie review: The stylish Unni Mukundan action thriller falters due to a weak script

Unni Mukundan in and as ‘Marco’
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

That Marco has been rated A makes sense when you see the Unni Mukundan-headlined film. This is a trigger warning for those who cannot stand the sight of blood and don’t have the stomach for all manner of mutilation of human beings and sometimes dogs. With that out of the way, let’s get to Marco, written and directed by Haneef Adeni, also the man behind the 2019 film Mikhael, starring Nivin Pauly. Though there has been speculation about Marco being a spinoff, the production team has been mum about the connection. 

Marco (Unni Mukundan) and his adoptive older brother, Adattu George (Siddique), first appear in Mikhael. And they do in this film too; Marco and George are brothers. George’s father brought Marco home as a child and raised him as one of his children. 

Saying that it is an action thriller does not capture the full extent of the ‘action’ in it. It is high on ‘mass-y’ gore. The plot is fairly simple — the blind younger brother of Adattu George, Victor, is murdered because he is a ‘witness’ to murder. And Marco will do anything for his family — kill and die, if he has to. But he mostly does the killing and maiming. Marco is about how the brothers wreak havoc on their brother’s murderers — Tony Issac and his sons. The first half of the film lays the foundation for the action that follows. In the second half, everyone in the movie seems to go berserk.

Driven by testosterone, Marco gives its women characters little to do.  Also, one cannot help but wonder what the police is up to when Adattu George goes around avenging his brother by shooting the people he thinks might have caused the death or when Tony’s sons go around killing people.

Marco reminds one of the Transporter series, the butchering and the bloodbath brings to mind Dexter with a dash of Animal minus the misogyny. If this review seems fixated on the violence in the film, it’s because that is what Marco is about. One leaves the movie hall thinking about the violence and the many ways of chopping, stabbing, slicing and impaling a human being. 

Marco demands that you approach it like pure fiction and if one were to go looking for reason, then disappointment awaits. If you like an action flick with plenty of stunts and few dialogues this would be your jam. 

The writing, what is there of it, flounders after the first half and then it is mayhem. In an action-driven film like Marco, the writing matters less than the stunt choreography and cinematography, both of which score high. Cinematographer Chandru Selvaraj has done a great job with the extremely stylish frames as has the composer/lyricist Ravi Basrur. The background score for one of first fights, before the interval, makes the entire sequence look poetic.

The character arcs and plotlines could have been developed better, for instance the backstory of Marco and his fiancée or that of Tony and his sons. The only relationship explored, if at all, is Marco’s attachment to Victor. In a film whose palette is primarily black and grey, the light and softness comes in and we get a glimpse into why Marco wants blood for blood. 

The cast comprises among others Anson Paul, Kabir Duhan Singh, Sreejith Ravi and some new, unfamiliar faces. Jagadeesh as the English-speaking, suit-wearing villain Tony Issac is a revelation. Though we have seen him in negative roles before, he impresses as a mafiosi-like businessman who is part of a criminal syndicate.    

For Unni this role is a shift, a rather drastic one at that, from his roles in recent films such as Malikapuram, Meppadiyan, and Jai Ganesh. Unni’s very stylish Marco has more shades of grey; he wears his unhappiness and anger like a shield.  

Touted as the most violent movie in the history of Malayalam cinema, one can’t help but agree with the claim. It still begs the question: why so much of it?

Marco is currently running in theatres