4 min readChennaiFeb 11, 2025 08:16 PM IST
Last Christmas, actor Unni Mukundan and director Haneef Adeni decided to paint the theatres red by dishing out the bloody and gory action thriller, Marco. It was so heavy on inventive action and incessant bloodshed that a film titled Rifle Club, which was a bloody actioner about people with guns going around killing each other, paled in comparison to the gore on display in Marco. The movie broke records for an A-rated film in Malayalam, and gradually broke into pan-Indian territory on sheer word-of-mouth and made Unni Mukundan a bonafide action star. In a recent interview, ahead of the OTT release of Marco, Unni opened up about why Marco is an outlier in Malayalam cinema, but he wishes it isn’t an exception.
“Marco had fights that you might have seen before, but not in an Indian film, and definitely not from a Malayalam film,” said Unni, who went on to candidly admit that there is a certain burden when such films come out from an industry like Malayalam. “Our cinema has this reputation of being ‘good and neat cinema.’ It is burdensome for people like me. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to achieve that ‘good cinema’ tag with every film. In fact, people shouldn’t be burdened with the responsibility of only making ‘good’ movies or benchmark movies. I don’t see that pressure for actors in Telugu, Hindi, or even Tamil cinema,” said the Meppadiyan actor in an interview with Galatta Plus.
ALSO READ: Marco: Unni Mukundan’s gorefest is one of the silliest Malayalam films, failing to bury its flaws beneath the bloodshed
While agreeing that the reputation gained by Malayalam cinema over the years thanks to its consistently good work is an important thing, Unni Mukundan points out that this special attention also limits expectations from the industry. “This kind of pressure limits us. Let’s say we have this big idea, but an artistic brilliance is missing in the idea, then it gets dropped. That is one reason why huge movies don’t come out of Malayalam,” said Unni, who is steadfast in wanting to change this system altogether. “I want to do bigger cinema. I am expecting a KGF or Baahubali from Kerala. Even my good friend Prithvi (Prithviraj Sukumaran) also mentioned the same. Why isn’t such projects happening when you have the best of technicians and actors in Malayalam. What is holding us back?”
Appreciating Telugu filmmakers for dreaming really big, and Telugu cinema for executing that vision, Unni said that his quest in cinema is to get that high from doing such films. “I want to do movies that impresses a lot of people. Our cinema is travelling, and Malayalam cinema does have a good reputation. Of course, I don’t want to compromise on that, but I do want to match up to the different kind of films I look up to. That was the driving force to do Marco. When people look at Marco, and are shocked about where it comes from, and ask… ‘Why?’, all I want to do is ask… ‘Why not?'”
ALSO READ: Marco zooms past Rs 100 crore mark; becomes sixth Malayalam film to hit milestone in 2024
Meanwhile, Unni Mukundan will next be seen in director Vinay Govind’s comedy drama Get Set Baby, which also stars Nikhila Vimal, Chemban Vinod Jose, and Surabhi Lakshmi in pivotal roles. With music by Sam CS, Get Set Baby, which marks the return of Vinay as a director after Kohinoor (2015), is set to hit the screens on February 21.
Unni Mukundan on how KGF and Baahubali inspired him to do Marco.