C.I.A. - Comrade in America [dir. Amal Neerad]

CIA is one of those movies that at the outset wears its politics on its sleeve...but then you realize it's only on the sleeve; within its heart is a romantic adventure drama. While our leading man Aji Matthew (Dulquer Salman) may be an avowed communist his primary purpose is that of being the archetype HERO - the guy who stands up for the oppressed, looks bravely in the eye of the arrogant establishment and beats up a half dozen henchmen, barely breaking a sweat. Of course he is better provided than Rajini's "Auto kaaran", since the Congress party worker father (Siddique), with whom he has sarcastic dining table exchanges, loves his son enough to bail him out of trouble each time.

In fact, the  non-cloying emotional bond between this father and son, and the kinship between Aji and his commie party buddies (Shoubin Shahir, Dileesh Pothan) provide the most endearing elements of CIA. Which is a good thing, because its political messaging is misleadingly simple-minded (Aji defines communism as sharing your lunch box with the kid who didn't get any), existing solely to showcase its hero's attributes, and yes, the admittedly funny fantasies where he discusses his personal life with Marx, Lenin and Che.

Aji's "content to stay where I am and impact a few people around me" life mantra is rocked when Sara (Karthika Muralidharan), the girl he loves, is taken back by her parents to the US and scheduled to be married in two weeks. Since it is unlikely that an unemployed leftist, even the son of a local politico, will get a US Visa in that time-frame, Aji opts to take the roundabout route of landing in Nicaragua (the nearest country to the US which provides a visa on arrival), then make his way by road to Mexico and enter the US illegally by jumping the border.

This is where the film gets slightly queasy, in its conversion of a harrowing reality to a romantic adventure. Baradwaj Rangan's insightful review details it much better than I could, so I definitely advise you to check it out. In Nicaragua, Aji befriends a Tamil speaking Lankan driver who agrees to help him get across, then a motley group of other archetypes - cute Mexican family, Chinese guy with a mobile phone and surprise, surprise, attractive Malayali girl (Chandini Sreedharan) who has landed there with the equally bone-headed intention of visiting the places her father was at, after HE landed as an illegal migrant.

A remark about women having to buying condoms to offer attackers who rape them is made into a wisecrack. When they are accosted by gun-wielding bandits, it's another Hero moment for Dulquer (no one even thinks to consider how he could have aggravated the situation, if he had failed to subdue them). While it's wrong to expect this movie to be a hard-hitting expose of burning issues (and thankfully it doesn't try to give a happy ending to all its characters), the extent to which they have been "fluffed" to provide a backdrop for what is essentially a well-made masala movie is certainly a matter of debate.