Marakkar follows the story of the legend of Kunjali Marakkar and his epic face off with the Portuguese. Firstly, credit to the makers for actually presenting the tale of the legend as it was a chapter long forgotten in our history text books. The film is made on a massive scale mounted on a huge celluloid which is quite evident. Unfortunately keeping this point in mind, the writing here is weak. The thing is when you push the stakes up, you require some solid writing to back your product as well. If you remember Bahubali, it had a solid screenplay coupled with a massive scale. Here though it is all glitz but little substance. While the first half has a good buildup with a young protagonist finding his feet post a tragedy, it nicely sets the ball rolling for the proceedings to follow. While you are introduced to the characters, there is this simmering tension as well in the background. But the face off that I was looking forward to takes place at the halfway mark in a terrifically shot battle sequence. This is when I did get my expectations high but what followed was a damp and uninspiring second half. Some of the subplots were interesting but half baked which eventually just added to the runtime. At times the drama did lag to an extent only to end on a at best above average end. In other words, the screenplay is predictable and only works in parts but if I look at it on the whole it does fall short of expectations. It pains me to point out the flaws as the film has a National Award to its credit. But unfortunately, the film isn’t the best version of itself.