In the opening sequence of the (arguably) American classic, American Psycho, the antagonist, Patrick Bateman, describes his morning ritual. He begins: "I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I will put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1,000 now.... In the shower, I use a water-activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub."
We see him doing all that in the movie, with extreme care. In Bret Easton Ellis book, on which the Christian Bale-starrer is based, two pages are dedicated to Bateman's hair care routine alone.
Mukundan Unni, of Mukundan Unni Associates—a dark comedy-drama, which does not take itself too seriously—is 36 years old. He is also 29. For the past few years, he has been 29, except for the government which has his actual birth record, and of course, his mother. He, too, begins his day with a Bateman-like ritual. He is anal-retentive—believes in keeping himself prim and proper, with a neatly ironed shirt, well-groomed hair, and a carefully trimmed moustache. Mukundan Unni dislikes people who can't take enough effort to take care of themselves.
But unlike Patrick Bateman, Mukundan Unni is yet to be successful. He is a down-on-his-luck lawyer wanting to make it big by any means necessary.
This is certainly not an attempt to say that American Psycho has much to do with Mukundan Unni Associates. However, the leading men in these two films share a trait or two in common, the most prominent of them being the willingness to give into their baser instincts without an iota of regret. Not all men have it in them to viciously and very meticulously plan a murder with a snake (oh, that brilliant Chekhov's gun) like Mukundan Unni. Just like not all men can turn into a chain-saw-wielding serial murderer like Bateman. These two are clearly outliers, men devoid of a moral compass, who have absolute disregard for following norms imposed on them by the society, ready to give into their baser instincts, harm or kill when it suits them, and put on a face when necessary. Mukundan Unni of Abhinav Sunder Nayak is every bit a sociopath as Mary Harron's Bateman. And that's where the similarity ends!
The trailer of Mukundan Unni Associates did give out some Better Call Saul vibes. The movie is about a down-and-out lawyer who is ready to cut corners, sidestep procedures, and trick unsuspecting passersby—a lot of which you may see in the prequel and sequel to Breaking Bad. However, here too, the similarities end right there, because Jimmy McGill or Saul Goodman or Gene Takavic isn't plain evil, unlike Mukundan Unni.
In his ambitions, Mukundan Unni is more like Tom Tom Ripley of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Just like Ripley, Unni has a chip on his shoulder, is adept at fabricating stories offhand and coming up with complex maneuvers to achieve what he desires. Just like Ripley, who is a charming, but cold-blooded murderer, Mukundan Unni is ready to give into his darker thoughts at the drop of a coin when he senses an opportunity to make a buck, be it the death/murder of a rival, a dreadful tragedy involving children, or ghosting his girlfriend when he sees her as a liability.
Mollywood has had its anti-heroes, like Bhaskara Patelar of Vidheyan, Shammi of Kumbalangi Nights, or Viswanath of Mukunthetta Sumitra Vilikkunnu. Their exploits have been heartless and menacing, but they all had some form of poetic/cinematic justice coming to them, but not Mukundan Unni. Mollywood has been shying away from showing the antihero getting away with it all, until Mukundan Unni came along.
There is no cinematic justice coming to haunt Mukundan Unni, nor is he racked by regret at any moment. In a dog-eat-dog world, the best possible way to survive is to be the biggest dog of them all, and that is what Mukundan Unni is!
Friends are disposable, relationships are never built on trust, and everyone can be crossed and double-crossed if it leads to loads of money. In that sense, he is more of an antagonist, than an antihero archetype, because he isn't getting away with unspeakable crimes for a noble cause. He does the deplorable and stays deplorable till the credits roll. He does not face a moral dilemma when he plans and executes his crimes, he is never torn between choices; and the Dexter-like monologue you hear from him, at no point, hints at an internal conflict when he is being absolutely amoral.
Mukundan Unni is not the only slick and slippery character in the movie with little respect for conventional moral fibre. While there are a few anti-heroes in Mollywood like Mangalassery Neelakandan or Shaji (Tovino Thomas in Kala), who are wayward and amoral, there has always been an attempt to balance them with a woman who is willing to be sacrificial lambs while trying to help their men mend their ways. Mukundan Unni Associates gives a miss to this familiar trope, and that's possibly a first in Mollywood. The director does not make Unni's 'love interest' Meenakshi likable; she is equally vile and vicious and is only too glad to be a party to his scheming ways. She does not humanise him; this is no tale of redemption, and Meenakshi is not his angel of light. She is the Bonnie to his Clyde, Mallory to his Mickey. The director deserves applause for creating a woman lead character who is equally unscrupulous and irredeemable as the leading man, and is not for a moment worried about the high road.
Lijo Jose Pellissery has often spoken about cinema not needing a message, or leaving people with a “moral of the story.” Nayak does not present his film as a cautionary tale about people wholly consumed by greed and envy; there isn't a moment of finger-wagging, no reprobation of the crimes and misdeeds of the outlier duo of Unni and Meenakshi. It is refreshing to see filmmakers not falling into the trap of shouldering the moral responsibility to make a movie the monolith of morality.
