Twenty:20 (film)

Plot

Retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Viswanathan Menon (Madhu) and his wife (Kaviyoor Ponnamma) come home to celebrate Vishu with his children (Siddique, Vijayaraghavan and Sindhu Menon) and grandchildren, and hopes to spend the remainder of his life in tranquility. The big joint family arrives and prepares to celebrate through the weekend, but plans go awry when Menon's grandson Arun Kumar (Indrajith Sukumaran), a medical student in Bangalore, is accused of murdering a fellow student.

The Superintendent of Police, Antony Punnekkadan (Suresh Gopi), who has a grudge against Menon's children, attempts to take Arun into custody. Arun goes into hiding, but Antony finds him and seizes him from the hideout. The Menon family hires ace criminal lawyer Ramesh Nambiar (Mammootty), who bails Arun out of jail. Vinod Bhaskar (Jayaram), a doctor and Professor of Medicine, wants to testify against Arun but is kidnapped by Karinkal Pappachan (Kalabhavan Mani), a thug hired by Menon's children.

Arun gets murdered and Superintendent Punnekkadan arrests Devan (Mohanlal), a poor trader who happened to be at the scene. Devan's sister (Kavya Madhavan) and his mother (Sukumari) tells Ramesh that Devan is Innocent and that he is being framed by Punnekkadan. Ramesh takes the case, proves Devan's innocence in court, and Devan is released. Minutes after the release, Ramesh encounters Devan, who introduces himself as Devaraja Prathapa Varma, a crime boss. It is revealed that Devaraja and his assistants deceived Ramesh into believing that Devaraja was innocent. Devaraja reveals that he is the real killer and that he tricked Ramesh as retribution for saving Arun. Devaraja plans to avenge the brutal murders of his brother Karthik Varma (Dileep), who was killed by Arun and his cousins Mahindran (Manoj K. Jayan) and Ganeshan (Shammi Thilakan).

This triggers a feud between Devaraja and Ramesh. When Devaraja tries to kill the last two relatives involved in the crime, Ramesh sets a trap. Devaraja escapes but is eventually arrested by Superintendent Punnekkadan. Ramesh learns the truth about the murder at the Bangalore Medical College from Vinod Bhaskher (Jayaram), who is a teacher there and close friend of Devaraja's. Ramesh's sister Ashwathy is a student at the Bangalore medical college when she witnesses Arun killing a girl at the school. Arun, along with his two relatives Mahindran and Ganeshan, apprehend Ashwathy, inject her with morphine and Arun rapes her. Aswathy's boyfriend Karthik attempts to save her but he is killed and Aswathy falls into coma.

When Ramesh finds out Devaraja was actually trying to kill the criminals who defiled his sister, he is full of remorse. He remembers when Devaraja warned him that he would regret knowing the truth. Devaraja escapes from police custody with the help of a police officer (Sreenivasan) and he kills Ganeshan. Then Ramesh kills Mahindran and Superintendent Antony kills Arun's father Madhavan (Siddique). The case is abandoned when the Superintendent lets them walk free, knowing that otherwise they would escape anyway.

Production and distribution

Twenty:20 was made as a fundraiser for the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA). The script was written by Uday Krishna and Sibi K Thomas. As a producer, Dileep was the main investor in the project and he bought the rights of the film for 40 million. He officially handed over the money to AMMA a year before. The film shooting officially started at a ceremony held in Hotel White Fort, Kochi, with Dileep handing over the advance to Joshi. The filming was primarily held in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. A song sequence in the film was shot in Mauritius. The shooting of the film started on 7 December 2007 and finished in October 2008.

Meera Jasmine, who was slated to act in the film opposite Dileep, dropped out citing shortage of dates. There were reports that the AMMA was planning a ban on her regarding the issue. However, no ban was pronounced and Meera Jasmine was replaced with Bhavana.

The High Court of Kerala issued a stay preventing the government's planned action of allowing a 50% premium to be charged for tickets in a case where the plaintiff argued that the state only had the right to offer tax breaks on the making of films.

Moser Baer home entertainment released the VCD and DVD of the movie in India.

Surya TV owns the broadcast rights for Twenty:20.

Reception

Twenty:20 was released on 5 November 2008.

Indian film review website Sify.com described the ensemble cast as the "Mother of all multi-starrers". The site called the film a "stylish, racy and never a dull moment super entertainer." The reviewer went on to write that the film "is a winner all the way" and that "it is a blockbuster in the making and is refreshingly fresh, innovative entertaining and highly recommended". Rediff.com rated the film 3/5, calling it "surprisingly good" and gave credit to the director Joshi for "designing a miracle".

Box office

Twenty20 released in 115 theatres and grossed more than ₹1 crore (US$160,000) in the opening day which was highest at that time, The first week distributors share of the film stood at ₹30.3 million (US$470,000), making it the first highest grossing Malayalam film in the opening week. Twenty:20 opened at the external market on 21 November 2008 with approximately 25 prints, including 4 prints in the USA, 11 prints in the UAE, and 7 prints in Tamil Nadu. It completed 100 days in 10 centres, and got a distribution share of about ₹10.5 crore (US$1.6 million) from Kerala alone. The film collected ₹32.6 crore (US$5.1 million) in its total run. It was the highest-grossing film in the history of Malayalam cinema for a period of five years until the movie Drishyam crossed the record set by Twenty:20 in 2014.

Audio launch

The audio launch of the film was held in a function at Mohanlal's own Hotel Travancore Court, Eranakulam. AMMA president and actor Innocent released the audio CD by handing it over to actress Manju Warrier, who is the wife of actor Dileep, the producer of the film. The music rights of the film were reportedly purchased for a record price by Manorama Music. The music CD pack carries a bonus VCD of the video film The Making of Twenty:20. There are three songs in the album, one by composer Berny-Ignatius ("Sa re ga ma pa") and others by Suresh Peters.

Track listing

There are three tracks in the album: three vocals and the karaoke versions of them. The lyrics of the songs were penned by Gireesh Puthenchery.