Bazooka’s Gautham Vasudev Menon: I like police procedurals, but I am not writing in that genre now

In filmmaker-actor Gautham Vasudev Menon’s filmography as a director, some of the films that stand out have been police procedurals, like Kaakha Kaakha, Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu and Yennai Arindhaal. As an actor, he is more often seen as a cop, including in his upcoming Malayalam release, Bazooka. It’s been a decade, though, since the filmmaker made a proper police procedural, which, he says, is because he has not been writing stories in that genre.

Gautham Vasudev Menon likes the police procedural genre, but...

In fact, he admits that he is not in the creative space to attempt a police procedural at this point. Instead, he is keen to work on love stories, a genre that he thinks has also become a rarity. Gautham says that he is currently working on something in the romantic drama space, which could be his next directorial. He doesn’t entirely rule out cop stories, because it is a genre that he likes a lot. But there’s got to be the right spark to be able to develop one, he reckons.

The filmmaker, who calls himself a reluctant actor, says that the clincher for him to play ACP Benjamin Joshua in Bazooka was that Malayalam superstar Mammootty was the lead in it. While he does occasionally reject acting gigs, the film by debutant director Deeno Dennis was one that he could not say no to, primarily because he wanted to share screen space with Mammootty.

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Of course, he also liked the story, but Gautham adds that he took it as a challenge as the film was shot with live sound. Gautham, who is not fluent in Malayalam, had a fair share of dialogue exchange Mammootty, and needed only a few corrections in dubbing. Bazooka is one of three Vishu releases in Malayalam and is, according to the filmmaker-actor, a heist movie that has a gaming angle to it.

Bazooka, which also stars Siddarth Bharathan, Jagadish, Babu Antony, Neeta Pillai, Gayathri Iyer, Divya Pillai, Shine Tom Chacko, among others, is Mammootty's second release of the year. The actor was last seen in Dominic and the Ladies' Purse, directed by Gautham, which had received mixed reviews, as did Turbo before that. Bramayugam, though, had been well received in 2024, following 2023's Kaathal The Core and Kannur Squad.