Athiradi (2026 film) Review

 Few years back, 2 BCET students Joseph Oommen and Merin are conducting the Aarohan Fest as coordinators. The fest ended up in a tragedy after Merin got killed in a stampede. The tragedy was caused by the juniors who entered the hall after Joseph opened the gates. The incident made Joseph get depressed and he left the college.

Years later, Samkutty aka 'Sam Boy', the younger brother of Joseph joined the college. As a part of impressing his crush Swathi R. Krishna, he decided to restart the event. As the coordinator of the event, he succeeded in making Vineeth Sreenivasan approve to perform in their college which increased the hype of the event.

During the car stunt as a part of the fest, the students blocked the path of local temple circumambulation, leading to a chaos causing Sreekuttan Vellayani, a retired goon and an aspiring singer being humiliated by the students who beat him. Being humiliated, he created chaos in the event by removing the head of a robot and also kidnapping Vineeth Sreenivasan along with Shaan Rahman, who accompanied him.

Sreekuttan after kidnapping Vineeth and Shaan decided to arrange a concert with him in his temple avenging Samkutty. Samkutty being helpless in rescuing Vineeth, initially masked the kidnapping from the students, but was exposed by Sreekuttan who welcomed the students to the concert in the temple.

Samkutty manages to find the hideout of Sreekuttan who with the help of his friends rescued Vineeth and Shaan and succeeded in bringing them in the stage. Sreekuttan became relaxed after hearing Vineeth singing the song which he composed in memory of his mother, for which he created all the chaos. The event also witnessed the reunion of Joseph with his college and the unveiling of magazine which was failed due to Merin's death years back. Samkutty is celebrated in the event after successfully conducting the event and the college rejoicing in the event.

The film ends with Kuttan calling Vineeth and debuts his composition in the temple festival.

Mollywood Times Movie Review

 Sachin Vaikom David, the young son of celebrated Malayalam horror novelist Vaikom David, attempts suicide out of feelings of inadequacy. David stops him by confessing a dark secret: his entire literary legacy is built on plagiarising the unpublished manuscripts of his late lover, Anuradha, sustained by a network of ghostwriters. David instills in Sachin the cynical belief that a manufactured reputation outweighs the truth. Meanwhile, Peter, one of David's ghostwriters, exposes this fraud in a novel titled Devil's Island. David systematically destroys nearly every copy, but one survives in the possession of a young aspiring filmmaker, Vineeth Madhavan.

Vineeth dreams of becoming a horror director despite the disapproval of his middle-class family. After his debut short film allegedly sends his rationalist grandfather into a coma, his father recognises his potential and Vineeth enters a prestigious short film contest. Though his entry is the crowd favourite, he loses the grand prize to the politically connected Arjun Haridas. Recognising Vineeth's talent, Sachin offers to back him in adapting one of the late David’s novels. However, when Vineeth significantly alters the script, co-producers Fayaz and Harris Basheer withdraw. Frustrated—and after learning that Arjun plagiarised his short films for a feature starring his girlfriend, and Vineeth's former admirer, Hana—Vineeth abandons Sachin. He partners with Fayaz to direct Manushyan, starring superstar Swaroop. Disaster strikes when a competitor releases a near-identical film, followed by Swaroop’s tragic death. Refusing to exploit the tragedy for box-office sympathy, Vineeth destroys the footage, resulting in a blacklisting.

To lift the ban, Vineeth trades a script to Arjun. Though Fayaz attempts to shadow-ban him, Harris steps in to produce Vineeth's next project. Meanwhile, after his grandfather's demise, Vineeth discovers that his grandfather's coma was actually induced by the shock of reading Devil's Island. Realizing the power of raw truth, Vineeth decides to adapt the expository novel. Sachin preemptively burns the final copy to protect his father's legacy, forcing Vineeth to write the screenplay from memory. The project, Nidhi, is set to star Hana, who is revealed to be Harris's sister and has broken up with Arjun. Seeking revenge, Arjun and Fayaz conspire to ruin Vineeth. Arjun manipulates Hana into marrying him and abandoning the production. Undeterred, Harris encourages Vineeth to recast and finish the film. Concurrently, Fayaz coerces Vineeth's working-class friend, Sujith, into directing a competing film, Yuddham.

Days before the release, Vineeth discovers Harris deliberately sabotaged Nidhi's marketing to use the film as a tax write-off. However, during the private premiere, Harris dies of a heart attack brought on by the film's terrifying climax, generating massive viral publicity that makes the movie a box-office phenomenon. In retaliation, Sachin publicly exposes a childhood book review written by his wife and frames him as a plagiarist, which sparks severe public backlash.

At a subsequent awards ceremony, Sujith’s Yuddham sweeps the major categories, though Sujith privately laments that the industry values his underprivileged background over his actual artistry. Vineeth is handed the Best Debut Director award to a silent crowd. He delivers a scathing acceptance speech, exposing the systemic corruption of Sachin, David, Arjun, and Fayaz, and vows to continue making films on his own terms.