Aavesham

Three students newly arrived in Bengaluru get beaten up on campus and go looking for a gangster to settle it. The man they find is Ranga: gold chains, never stops talking, wounded like a child one moment and dangerous the next. They think they are using him. He adopts them and will not let them leave. All the energy is in Fahadh Faasil's performance. The character is funny and unsettling in equal measure, with no guarantee anywhere that he will not hurt somebody, and the film keeps that uncertainty alive to the end. Jithu Madhavan wrote and directed, with Fahadh Faasil, Nazriya Nazim and Anwar Rasheed among the producers. It opened on 11 April 2024, took a hundred and fifty six crore against a thirty crore budget, and became the fourth Malayalam film of 2024 to pass a hundred crore. Its flaws: the plot scatters in the second half, there is barely a woman in it, and the switches between violence and comedy do not always land. Who it is for: viewers who like Indian action comedy built on a character. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a tight screenplay.