REVIEW : Movies about successful sportsmen or a sport in itself has been the ‘in thing’ in the tinsel town off late and with Kavi Udheshichathu, Mollywood presents its second movie that has volleyball as its core, this season. A few good and unethical players, non-sports reasons to give the game their blood, parallelly running romantic tracks, underdog teams and an extremely predictable climax - A film that has no bearing on its title, Kavi Udheshichathu is a sum total of everything in a checklist sports movie. 

Set in a rustic village that has generations of volleyball fans and players, the movie has a group of jobless yet spirited youngsters, led by Jimmy (Asif Ali), at its heart. Vattathil Bosco (Narain), a faint-hearted yet boastful rich man conducts volleyball tournaments at the village often and Jimmy and friends decide to field a team, compelled by a few turn of events. In the true ‘spirit’ of the tournament, gamesters also bet alliances with each other in a huff, with tension mounting on both fronts. 

The achayan-style dhothi-kurthi-cooling glass look suits Narain, but he somewhere lacks the ‘X factor’ required to pull off the character. Asif Ali’s village lad avatar is decent but other than that, there’s nothing striking about his Jimmy. The film turns predictable in no time and what it survives on is a handful of moments of tomfoolery by a few in the supporting cast like Balu Varghese. Though the movie is only just above two hours, you feel that it takes forever to wrap up, thanks to a foreseeable ending and snail-paced narrative. There is something utterly empty about the film, though it has a decent story and some good actors. On the whole, there is hardly anything that keeps you glued to the screen and understand what Kavi Udheshichathu. 

There’s no harm in giving the film a try if you are one of those patient, any-film-works-for-me viewers.