Suresh Gopi is seen as both a police officer and an underworld don in Viji Thampy's directorial venture "Bada Dost". Phrases like 'suspension of disbelief' and 'leap of faith' reverberate when you see villains flying and falling half a mile away on getting strong punches from the hero in the film.

Apart from that, there are dialogues sprinkled with quotes from religious texts -- for instance the hero says that he is an avatar sent to the earth to vanquish the evildoers.

In other words, this is a run-of-the-mill Suresh Gopi film. The director does not try to experiment much here, just tweaking the formula stuff here and there to claim originality of plot -- an honest cop bogged down by the system in his fight against an underworld don who has spread his tentacles over the city of Kochi. Unable to do much about it, the cop joins hands with the don.

The film revolves around Daya Shankar (Suresh Gopi), an upright cop, and Geevarghese alias G.V. (Siddique), who is a baddie.

After several confrontations between Daya Shankar and G.V., matters come to such a boil that G.V. attacks Daya Shankar's family. He kills his mute younger brother Nandu (Manikuttan) and makes his wife (Jyothirmayi) immobile.

Then, G.V. offers his hand of friendship (thereby conferring on our hero the title of Bada Dost) and the good cop accepts it after resigning from his job.

No, no there is no scheme for revenge or any such thing, of which the audience is aware. That is revealed much later in the film.

The story is narrated in flashback by the Bada Dost -- who has now become a Good Samaritan by starting orphanages, hospitals and homes for the destitute -- to police commissioner Zakir Ali (Manoj K. Jayan) who thinks Bada Dost is still involved in illegal activities.

The rigmarole continues till what seems like eternity with twists and turns that we lose count of.

If we have to look for interesting things in this film, they will be hard to find. But, on second thoughts, we can say that the three different get-ups of Siddique, who is also the film's producer, are quite amusing. A wannabe Kamal Haasan?

Despite the makeup tricks, however, the film remains trite fare.