Director Ranjith's latest film "Rock n Roll" starring Mohanlal is a typical Ranjith film with music as the supposed backdrop. It is really just the story of a middle-aged and wayward hero finding an anchor in a woman who seems to be half of his age.

Chandramouli (Mohanlal) is a world-renowned drummer who has collaborated with most international musicians.He is a vagabond while being commitment phobic.

He has solved the mysteries of existence. We can think of no actor other than Mohanlal to carry off this role . He finds it difficult to sustain his enthusiasm because his characterisation is flawed at the most basic level. It begins with such fervour and ends with such a whimper that it disappoints not only lay viewers but also fans of the star.

The story is about a group of musician friends, Chandramouli being one of them. Everyone else is settled in Chennai, working in the film industry in various capacities.

One day Guna (Siddique) requires a drummer to spice up his composition and feels there is no one better than his old friend Chandramouli to do it. He locates Chandramouli in Mumbai and pleads with him to visit Chennai and record the song.

The director invests heavily in etching out these characters but does not carry the story forward with them. Is this because he has no idea what to with them?

There are hints in the beginning that Ranjith may have been inspired by "Classmates" (with Lal Jose, the director of that film, making a cameo appearance) where a group of friends reunite in their alma mater and the old skeletons start tumbling out of the closet.

But nothing like that happens in this film, there is only a half-hearted effort to make the script look dense with some discourses on marital discord and things like that.

Mohanlal tries hard to make the film stay afloat, but it eventually sinks.

The support system in the form of actors Siddique, Rehman, Lal, Harisree Asokan, Mukesh and Jagathy Sreekumar cannot do much either to save it from disaster.

Ultimately, the responsibility for this disaster of a movie lies with director Ranjith, who just reworks the characteristics of his archetypical hero without really focusing on the film in a holistic manner.