ED Extra Decent movie review: Suraj Venjaramoodu’s dark comedy had promise but falters due to inconsistent writing

3/5

ED Extra Decent story: After Binu, a middle-aged man who is still living with his parents, finds out a dark secret about his parents, the members of the seemingly ordinary family are forced to confront their secrets and lies, all the while unravelling their dark intentions too.

ED Extra Decent review: Perceptions can be deceiving. Even an ordinary family, with two loving parents, a son and a daughter, could harbour some dark secrets that others would hardly be aware of. In director Aamir Pallikkal’s ED Extra Decent, the filmmaker and its writer Aashif Kakkodi try to work with what happens within such a seemingly ‘decent’ family, when one of them finds out a deep, dark secret that threatens the dynamics between each member and exposes the selfish intentions.

The film revolves around a family of four – Sudheer Karamana and Vinaya Prasad as parents, and Suraj Venjaramoodu and Grace Antony as siblings. Suraj’s character Binu was brought up with firm discipline from his father, so much so that he has hardly been able to make anything out of his life and is now looked down upon by his dad. But after Binu learns his parents’ dark secret, his attitude takes a turn, from an obedient son to a tyrannical one. Tired of enduring his toxicity, the parents devise something unexpected, till an incident forces them as well as Binu to re-evaluate.

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ED Extra Decent is a dark comedy. It’s characters, even if they represent a normal family, all have grey shades, something that has been rarely tried in family entertainers. This is both interesting and a challenge. It’s interesting because it lets the makers play out the different dynamics between its characters and surprise as well as shock the audience with their intentions. The challenge, however, is that if there is a lack of a strong writing and character development, it’s also easy to falter, taking away the engagement factor. And in a film like ED Extra Decent, where incidents happen one after the other and how the relationship between the son and parents keep varying, if the audience leaves that bandwagon of thought, it’s hard to pull them back.

This is where the movie suffers, despite having a brilliant idea to explore that craziness – at times bordering of sociopathic tendencies – in some families. While its writer Aashif brings forth ideas of fear, selfishness and manipulativeness to tell this story of a family, instead of relying on more positive emotions like love and consideration, he is not able to hammer it home. The character’s dark intentions are evident but at the same time, it’s also vague.

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Suraj is excellent as he gets to show the various shades of Binu – the controlling, the considerate and the crazy. But somewhere you get the feeling that despite his threats, he doesn’t really go through with it. This element pays off, only at the very end, but then it almost feels like that the makers are begging you to stay along with a few comedies that further slows it down. Vinaya Prasad gets a meaty role and is also one of the better written characters in the film.

Instead of focusing on the comedy scenes in the hospital – after Binu meets with an accident that leads to memory loss – between unrelated characters, it would have helped keep the suspense alive, if it had revolved around the family. Ankit Menon’s music too in these portions feel like an overkill, though the psycho song and the one that explains Binu’s plight fit well with the narrative.

ED Extra Decent verdict: If you are a fan of dark comedies, ED Extra Decent is worth a watch, purely for the intentions of the makers and Suraj’s performance. It is fun in parts and has laughs, but its potential is unfulfilled as its brightest ideas needed better execution.