Mammootty's nostalgic cameo as Karikkamuri Shanmughan couldn't rescue Ranjith's directorial comeback, with the cop drama drawing no overseas business and largely negative reviews.
Two days in, Ranjith's Law & Order hasn't managed even half a crore at the domestic box office, a number that makes the pre-release buzz around Mammootty's brief return as Karikkamuri Shanmughan look like a marketing bet that didn't pay off.
The film opened in Kerala theatres on September 18 and pulled in an estimated 29 lakh net on day one, according to trade estimates reported by Koimoi. Day two brought a further slide, to 18 lakh net. That puts the two-day domestic total at roughly 47 lakh, with no overseas footprint to soften the number. At this pace, trade watchers expect the film to wind down its theatrical run within the week.
The pitch going in was simple. Bring back Mammootty as the cop character he first played in the 2004 film Black, also written and directed by Ranjith, and let nostalgia do the heavy lifting. Posters and promotional material leaned hard on that cameo in the run-up to release. It hasn't worked. Audiences who've watched the film are calling it dated, and reaction to Prakash Varma's turn as the lead cop hasn't helped either.
The teaser and trailer had already put the film on the back foot well before September 18, with negative chatter building online for weeks. That the eventual opening numbers rank among the weakest for a recent Malayalam release carrying a big-name cameo suggests that early reaction wasn't just noise on social media.
For Ranjith, the film marks a return to direction after a stretch away from filmmaking tied to legal proceedings. The director, whose credits include Ravanaprabhu, Nandanam, Chandrolsavam and Pranchiyettan and the Saint, was named in a sexual harassment case, and earlier this year he was taken into judicial custody by Thodupuzha Police in connection with an attempted sexual assault case. No court has delivered a verdict in that matter, and the allegations remain allegations. Law & Order was positioned as his comeback project, and it now arrives under a kind of scrutiny that has nothing to do with box office arithmetic.
Whether the film claws back any ground this weekend looks unlikely given the trajectory so far. Distributors will be watching day three and four numbers closely to decide how fast to pull it from smaller centres. For Mammootty, the cameo adds little either way. For Ranjith, the commercial verdict on his return to the director's chair looks close to written.
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