Flaws in our judicial system have always provided the movie industry a scope in using the customized justice or parallel justice theme as a subject in creating various movies. The Great Father written and directed by debutant Haneef Adeni is one such attempt to showcase all that in to an entertainer film. While the social preach in the content gives it relevance in terms of present day scenario, there isn’t anything cinematically appealing to make you say great things about the film.

David Nainan is this builder who loves his family. His wife Michelle is a doctor and the couple has a daughter named Sarah. She boasts to her friends about the past underworld life of her dad, which she only heard from him. The smooth journey of the family comes to an end as an unfortunate incident which has a connection with a mad psycho killer shakes the family. David’s quest to find the man who disrupted his family’s happiness is what The Great Father talking about.

In a way The Great Father is a mix of Mohanlal’s Karmayodha and the Jeethu Joseph movie Memories. This is not an accusation of copying, when you look at the structure of the story, you sort of feel that way. To make it more of a heroic movie which will please the fan base, Haneef Adeni adds a parallel police investigation track. Apart from the social relevance factor, the appealing factors in this film are largely an outcome of the thrills we get through this Nainan vs Police part. David’s swag occasionally creates that much needed feel we sort of expected through all the promos.

Mammootty as David Nainan looks terrific and Haneef Adeni has managed to write portions that utilized his subtle acting abilities. That scene where he cries inside the lift and the sequence where he explains his feelings to a doctor marks these moments. Sneha doesn’t have much to do as Michelle. Arya’s look wasn’t convincing for the role and the justification sounded a bit lame. His performance looked fine and a share of credit goes to the dubbing artist. Anikha as Sara was good. Her role wasn’t as simple as the usual roles offered to kids as it involved expressing sensitive feelings of complicated situations.

Haneef Adeni as a film maker was interested in making the film look more stylish than working on the content to make it more layered. From the stunning looks of Mammootty to occasional minimal counter dialogues that sort of boosts the heroism, the style factor is there (don’t expect the big B level). But the writing wasn’t that exciting. The cat and mouse play in the film doesn’t look that complicated and also when you finally get to know who the bad guy is, there are questions that aren’t answered properly. Roby Varghese’s cinematography was just okay. The songs weren’t that catchy while the background score was convincing for the feel of the movie. Edits occasionally tries a back and forth way to show us David’s heroics but that pattern looks a bit repetitive.

The Great Father is an average cinema. The issue it addresses gives it a relevant feel and the heroics we get to see offers that feeling of a commercial entertainer. But the movie hasn’t really managed to find that correct balance between these two.