A work well done is inspiration in itself. Marco, for Malayalam’s latest cine sensation Unni Mukundan, is that inspiration. He basks in all the glory of the Rs 100-crore-plus success, finds in it the culmination of positive thought, action, risks, planning, creativity, et al. He looks back at it for energy and fulfilment, but is careful not to get carried away.
Unni is now all set to transition from the brute to the boy-next-door mode on screen. His next — Get-Set Baby, to be released on February 21 — promises his “soft-hearted, very neighbourly” avatar. Get-Set Baby is a poignant yet warm and lively take on the life of a male doctor who helps couples build a family, says Unni, who plays a fertility specialist in the film.
TNIE catches up with Unni for a quick chat. Excerpts
How much of a planned move was Marco? It seems there was a detailed analysis of how ready audiences are for the action genre…
Yes, there was an analysis. The success of films such as KGF showed there was space for movies that spoke action. And I have a flair for it. So, whatever we did on Marco was a well-thought-out, strategised, and hard-worked plan. The space for an outright action film was what we invested in. There was a significant risk taken, too, as the investment was Rs 30 crore — on a film that we knew would have a restricted audience because of the ‘A’ certification. That was a huge risk. We still did it because we knew the space, we knew the genre, and we knew how to place ourselves in the equation creatively. It took hard work, but more than that, it took grit.
There has been a barrage of criticism about the violence and gore in the film…
Marco has not shown even 10 per cent of the violence that exists in society. Every day, while reading newspapers, one comes across acts of violence that put human sensibilities to shame. In Marco, we showed violence as a survival instinct. I don’t underestimate the power of violence. It has been part and parcel of humanity’s evolution over the ages.
When we embarked on the project, we had to understand the emotional changes in the audience that time had brought in. We knew the film would get an ‘A’ certificate. We knew women might not come for it as much, and children could not watch it. I had, in fact, cautioned children against watching it. We, however, were confident there was a space for a good, full-on action film. We fine-tuned our filmmaking based on that understanding. The craft that went into Marco was of high quality.
