‘Bro Daddy’ movie review: Mohanlal, Prithviraj deliver underwhelming experience

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