The story of a vice principal or the story of a local goon, a mystery thriller or a college drama. Ironically, Velipaadinte Pusthakam or The Book of Revelation fails to reveal its true content. The first collaboration of Superstar Mohanlal and Super Director Lal Jose, unfortunately, is not the classic that was expected from the maestros.
The plot of the movie is set in Phoenix college of arts and science, an institution run by the missionaries. Michael Idicula (Mohanlal) is a newly appointed Vice Principal who easily befriends the students, the faculty, and the management. Bullet Vishwam is a local goon who had played a big hand in establishing the college in the locality. The story of Velipadinte Pusthakam interlink the stories of Idicula and Vishwam to form a dramatic thriller.
Lal Jose is an extremely efficient director who gave Malayalam cinema classics like Classmates and Ayalum Njanum Thammil; and commercially successful movies like Meesa Madhavan and Diamond Necklace. Velipaadinte Pusthakam might turn as an average movie with a loose script that lacks the usual Lal Jose's excellence. The screenplay by Benny P Nayarambalam, who is an experienced screenwriter has its hidden surprises which at times connect with the audience.
Cinematography by Vishnu Sharma who has good films like Godha and Ann Maria Kalippilanu under his belt was pretty decent and had delivered what the movie demanded.The music department handled by Shaan Rehman has some peppy tunes and gels well with the atmosphere that prevailed throughout the movie.
Other than Mohanlal the cast includes many good actors like Anoop Menon, Siddique, Salim Kumar, Angamaly Diaries fame Sarath and Anna Reshma Rajan, Anandam fame Arun Kumar, Chemban Vinod Jose and Priyanka Nair. Performance is one of the few good things that can be taken from the movie which has not much content in it. Mohanlal has as always, performed flawlessly and has been supported well by others, purely on a performance level. Salim Kumar's character, who leads the comedy department fails miserably by cracking jokes which were popular a decade ago.
The negatives of the movie stand tall. The story does not have a clear focal point and is loosely based on many stories. It has many cliches in it, one being that Mohanlal's character is super talented and is a maestro in every field. Most of the stunt sequences were odd as they appeared to be unreal and lacked energy. The comedy was low in humor. The movie had a crew with great caliber but did not rise up to the expectations.