Nair Saab

Nair Saab' is arguably, the best army movie released in India which is directed by Joshy and released in 1989. Mammootty, as Nair Saab gives a knock out performance. The audience loved the character so much that he was forced to do more army characters in his illustrious career. It was picturized in the stunningly beautiful Kashmir, exploiting both the summer as well as winter seasons.

The movie starts with a new batch of trainees arriving at the army training center (SAT) situated near border. Their trainer is Nair Saab, a man known for his hard-and-fast training strategies. The first half of the movie is a bit lighthearted and is treated with humor arising from the intense training of the guys. But, things take a U-turn once when the underworld buys out two guys from the batch and use them for importing drugs from the neighboring country. In the turn of events one trainee gets killed by the hands of underworld, while the blame falls on the trainer, Nair Saab. Everybody turns against Nair and he has to flee, only to come back later. The second half takes us to the winter time in Kashmir, which is an exquisite treat for the eyes. The plot thickens as well with the arrival of new trainer for SAT and the attempt to sell the ammunitions stored there, which is worth millions, to the enemy state. Nair Saab intervenes at the right time and with the help of his students, spoils all the evil plans of the traitors.

In the latter half, the movie keeps a very serious tone and is complemented by wonderful climax action sequences. Other actors too, gave impressive performances, Mukesh being the pick of the lot. The direction, photography, art direction, and background score has been fantastic. To put it simply, the movie was well ahead of its time and is regarded as a cult classic today. To think that this movie was made in the eighties and moreover in a shoe-string budget (compared to the Bollywood and other 'woods in India) is just incredible!

1989 is the lucky year for Mega Star Mammootty he ruled the box office entire year than other stars and created box office history through biggest hits such as Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha, Nair Saab, Artham, Mrigaya, Mahayanam and Jagratha. He has more edge than other stars in Malayalam industry at that time which shows that he is the only king of Malayalam Cinema from 1981 to till date. After Vadakkan Veeragatha, Nair Saab was the second biggest grosser in 1989. Nair Saab ran more than 125 days in major centers. In Trivandrum, Sri Bala theatre movie ran more than 130 days.