Ramji Rao Speaking

Three men who cannot find work share a place: unable to pay the rent, worn down by unemployment, and still not abandoning each other. A wrong telephone call drops them into the middle of a ransom scheme that belongs to somebody else. When they decide to make use of the opportunity that has fallen into their hands, they end up facing both the actual kidnappers and the actual family. What began as a joke turns serious fast. Siddique and Lal directed it together, their first film and a work regarded as a cult classic in Malayalam cinema. The comedy comes entirely out of the characters' desperation: it makes people laugh while describing what not finding work in Kerala in the eighties actually meant. Two sequels followed. Its lines and its scenes are still repeated, and it has been watched by successive generations.