With the exception of the depth of its production design, “Empuraan” has very nothing in common with its predecessor.
Symbolism in art is inherently indirect, but in Prithviraj Sukumaran’s Empuraan it is thrown at your face, one ‘L’ at a time, to remind us of the omnipotent anti-hero Lucifer. Part of a broken cross atop a rundown church falls down, landing in slow motion as an ‘L’. Later, a burning tree branch falls perfectly as an ‘L’. If the ‘L’eft bottom corner of the screen were ‘L’it up, one could have savoured an ‘L’ for the whole ‘L’ength of the film.
This over-reliance on the globally infamous, enigmatic character of Khureshi Ab’raam, also known as Lucifer, while reducing his local avatar Stephen Nedumpally (Mohanlal), the main character of the first part, to a cameo is one of Empuraan’s several issues. Even though Lucifer (2019) was a poor movie, it became the pinnacle of Malayalam commercial filmmaking in its post-release afterlife, even though it was nothing compared to the greatest commercial entertainment of the 1980s and 1990s. It did have one advantage, though. Apart from the depth of its production design, Empuraan has very nothing to offer.
L2: Malayalam: Empuraan Prithviraj Sukumaran is the director. Cast: Abhimanyu Singh, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Tovino Thomas, Manju Warrier, and Mohanlal 179 minutes of running time Narrative: Kerala politics are once again in upheaval five years after the events of “Lucifer,” necessitating the intervention of a strong savior.
As the plot becomes more “international” and involves the usual combination of drug cartels and intelligence services we have seen in countless movies, the political machinations in Kerala that were at the heart of Lucifer take a backseat. For largely brief, meaningless scenes that don’t significantly advance the plot, one can sense the excitement in presenting all the foreign places dispersed across continents that the crew visited. The emergence of a third political power in Kerala, which is also connected to the beginning of Lucifer’s sidekick Zayed Mazood (Prithviraj), is playing in the background, and everything builds to a foreseeable conclusion.