Casanovva
Confident Casanovva or simply Casanovva, is a 2012 Indian Malayalam-language romantic action thriller film directed by Rosshan Andrrews and written by Bobby & Sanjay. It was produced by Roy C. J. of Confident Group in association with Aashirvad Cinemas. It stars Mohanlal, Shriya Saran, Raai Laxmi, Roma Asrani, Vikramjeet Virk, Abhishek Vinod, Arjun Nandhakumar, Shahid Shamzy, Sanjjanaa Galrani, Jagathi Sreekumar, Lalu Alex, Riyaz Khan and Shankar .The film features original soundtrack composed by Gopi Sundar, Alphons Joseph, and Gowri Lakshmi, and a film score composed by Sundar.
Produced on a budget of 12 crore, it was one of the most expensive Malayalam films ever made at that time. Casanovva was released in India on 26 January 2012. The Hindi remake rights to the film were bought by Ketan Shah for.
Plot
The film is about Casanovva, a serial womanizer. Casanovva is a billionaire playboy and the owner of Casanovva’s Eternal Spring, an international chain of flower boutiques. He has at his beck and call a faithful array of female followers including his staff, friends and former girlfriends, who will do anything for him. The film starts with a robbery carried out by four criminals and they decide their next target in a wedding hall. They enter the wedding place as Casanovva's guests. Casanovva recognises them but allows them to attend the marriage function having some plan in his mind. The young criminals take some photos of their targeted rich persons and collect their details. Casanovva watches all this and does not respond at the moment.The next day is the wedding ceremony. Casanovva, with the aid of his friend in a TV channel, plans a live telecast program to capture the four criminal's robbery. But unfortunately, the wedding is postponed due to some unexpected reasons. Thus the robbers pull out from their plan. But within this time the TV channel people come for the telecast. Suddenly Casanovva gets an idea and announces a new live romance reality show through the channel named FALL IN LOVE. Then he creates some plans to make the two people in the robbery gang to fall in love with Hanna and Ann Mary and telecast their love scenes using hidden cameras through the live reality show FALL IN LOVE. Hanna falls for one of the young robber by hearing the words of Casanovva, who was her boss. The four robbers try to steal a sword, but casanovva interrupts them and takes the sword from them. By this time, the TV show became popular and causes some problems to Ann Mary, the robbers and even Hanna. Hanna asks her boss Casanovva what his plan was. So Casanovva reveals his flashback to Hanna.
Some years ago, Casanovva came to Dubai and romances some girls. Zacariah who is a magazine reporter publishes the stories of Casanovva and him mingling with girls. Sameera Zacharia, daughter of Zacharia helps Casanovva from a danger and eventually they become friends. But gradually Casanovva understands that he has some different feeling for Sameera than other women. He realizes that he is in love with her. She also has love interest in Casanovva. But her father requests Casanovva to leave his daughter. He replies that he was in love with his daughter. Casanovva calls Sameera for a meeting to reveal his love to her. She is also ready to reveal her feelings. She wears a mask to give Casanovva a surprise. But suddenly four robbers rush to the road with the same mask as Sameera. The police try to capture them. The four robbers escape and Sameera is caught by the police. And one of the robber shoots Sameera and she dies at the spot. Casanovva waits for her and returns to his room depressed. On the way, he sees the four robbers escaping in a car. But at that time he had no idea about the incident that had happened. He is informed of the death of Sameera by TV news in his room. He rushes to the police to tell about the robbers. But they don't listen to Casanovva. Here ends the Flashback.
He says to Hanna that the aim of the reality show was to make the robbers understand about the feeling of love. He then captures the robbers and makes them explain that Sameera was not their gang member to public through the TV show. Thus Casanovva succeeds in showing the innocence of his lover Sameera to the public and police. Then he asks the robbers who killed Sameera. Realising who it is, Casanovva kills the one who shoots his lover and surrenders to the police.
Cast
- Mohanlal as Casanovva
- Shriya Saran as Sameera Zacharia
- Raai Laxmi as Hanna
- Vikramjeet Virk as Alexi
- Roma Asrani as Ann Mary
- Abhishek Vinod as Arjun
- Arjun Nandhakumar as Kiran
- Shahid Shamzy as Saleem
- Sanjjanaa Galrani as Nidhi
- Jagathi Sreekumar as Luka
- Andria D'Souza as Mariam Thomas
- Lalu Alex as Zachariah
- Shankar Panicker as Ajay
- Riyaz Khan as Joseph
- Dimple rose as Rose
- Fathima Babu
Production
Filming
Casanovva started its shooting on 27 September 2010 and was scheduled to release in February 2011. However, the film has faced delays and its release date might be postponed. The first schedule was scheduled to finish in Dubai by 12 December 2010. It has been reported that Mohanlal is giving prime importance to another film, China Town, which is leading Casanovva to a delayed release. The second schedule has started from the last week of April 2011 in Dubai. The shooting at Dubai has ended by the first week of May 2011 and the next location is Bangkok will start shooting from 14 September, Fourth schedule Start shooting from 20 October at Bangalore, The remaining song was shot in the Last schedule that commenced from 12 December at Cape Town, South Africa.Release
Casanovva released theatres in India on 26 January 2012; 138 theatres in Kerala and 64 theatres outside Kerala making it the widest release for a Malayalam film, with simultaneous opening in Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and other Indian cities. The film released overseas in February 2012.Reception
Critical response
The film received scathing reviews from critics.- Moviebuzz from Sify called the film as "below average" while commented that "Casanovva perhaps has some nice moments but you would need real patience to spot them".
- Nowrunning.com rated, describing the movie as a "wish-wash film".
- Rediff gave the movie and said that "Casanovva disappoints big time".
- Metromatinee.com review said "if Casanovva works even just a bit, it's because of Mohanlal".
- IndiaGlitz.com called the film as "a stylish flick" and said that "Casanovva is one film that may satisfy the fans of the star and those who like technically sound, slickly made films".
- Oneindia.in said "Even the glamorous looking babes in short and skimpy clothes could not save Casanovva from the disastrous plot of the film".
Box office
The film had a large opening, collecting 2.06 crore, thanks to the 1,000 first-day shows, the highest ever for a Malayalam movie. However, as word of mouth spread, the collections caused drop in the subsequent days. The gross collection was just equal to the budget of the film.Soundtrack
The soundtrack features four songs composed by Gopi Sundar, Alphons Joseph and Gowri Lakshmi, with lyrics by Gireesh Puthenchery, Vayalar Sarath Chandra Varma, Gowri Lakshmi, Rosshan and Sanjay. The background score of the film has been composed by Gopi Sundar. The audio rights were acquired by Satyam Audio on a price of.Track | Song | Artist | Composer | Lyricist | Duration |
1 | Omanichumma | Karthik, Vineeth Sreenivasan, Najim Arshad, Roopa Revathi, Kalyani, Gopi Sundar | Gopi Sundar | Gireesh Puthenchery | 5.11 |
2 | Hey Manohara | Blaaze, Gopi Sundar, Pop Shalini, Balu Thankachan, Priya, Feji | Gopi Sundar | Blaaze, Gopi Sundar, Jelujay, Rosshan, Sanjay | 3.27 |
3 | Sakhiye | Vijay Yesudas, Shweta | Gowri Lakshmi, Gopi Sundar | Gowri Lakshmi | 3.13 |
4 | Kanna Neeyo | Sayanora | Alphons Joseph | Vayalar Sarath Chandra Varma | 3.24 |
5 | Casanovva Theme Song | Mohanlal, Priya Himesh, Ranina Reddy, Gopi Sundar | Gopi Sundar | 3.18 | |
6 | Sakhiye | Gopi Sundar, Shweta | Gowri Lakshmi, Gopi Sundar | Gowri Lakshmi | 3.13 |