Manjummel Boys (2024) Review: Loyalty at the Cave's Edge

Is Manjummel Boys worth watching?

Yes. Manjummel Boys is one of the most gripping Indian films of 2024, a true-story survival thriller in which the real suspense lies in how far friends will go for each other. Once the story reaches the Guna Caves, Chidambaram builds claustrophobic tension with remarkable control, and the ensemble makes the group feel like people who have known each other forever. The reservation is a rowdy, slightly shapeless first act that takes its time before the film finds its focus.

What is Manjummel Boys about?

Manjummel Boys follows a group of lifelong friends from Manjummel, near Kochi in Kerala, who pile into a vehicle for a carefree trip to the hill town of Kodaikanal in neighbouring Tamil Nadu. Among their stops is the Guna Caves, a site made famous by a Tamil film and notorious for its hidden, deep chasms. When one of the group falls into a pit whose depth nobody knows, a holiday of jokes and drinking becomes a desperate effort to bring him back, against local scepticism and the terrain itself.

The film is based on a real incident. Chidambaram directs, with Soubin Shahir and Sreenath Bhasi leading an ensemble that includes Balu Varghese, Ganapathi S. Poduval, Lal Jr. and Deepak Parambol. It is a Malayalam-language Indian film, runs 135 minutes, and screened at IFFI in 2024 after becoming one of the year’s biggest Indian box-office successes.

A cave that feels genuinely dangerous

The film’s technical achievement is considerable. The caves are rendered with a sense of scale and depth that makes the danger physical: narrow ledges, slick rock, sudden drops and a darkness that swallows torchlight. Shyju Khalid’s camera moves between wide shots that dwarf the friends and tight framing that makes the audience feel trapped alongside them. The production design is convincing enough that the setting never looks like a set, which is essential for a story that depends on the feeling that one wrong step is fatal.

Sushin Shyam’s score and the sound design add to the pressure, using echoes, drips and silence as effectively as music. The film also makes knowing use of the caves’ fame in Tamil cinema.

An ensemble that feels like a real gang

What lifts Manjummel Boys above a standard survival thriller is its sense of friendship. The early scenes, loose and chaotic, are full of banter, rivalries and in-jokes, and while they drag slightly, they establish the group’s easy intimacy. When the crisis hits, that intimacy becomes the film’s emotional engine.

Soubin Shahir gives the standout performance, bringing a quiet, watchful authority to his place in the group, while Sreenath Bhasi brings vulnerability to his role. The ensemble never tips into caricature, and individual reactions, from panic to stubborn loyalty, feel truthful. The film also observes, with some bite, how the friends are treated by local authorities and bystanders who doubt them.

Where the first act loses traction

The opening stretch is the film’s weakest. Before the caves, the story relies on the group’s high spirits, and viewers outside the culture of these friendships may find the extended road-trip rowdiness repetitive. With so many friends on screen, several blur together, and the film leans on its score in a few emotional moments where the images already speak. Once the central situation begins, these problems fade, but they make for a slow build.

Who should watch Manjummel Boys?

It is a strong choice for fans of survival thrillers, true-story dramas and ensemble films about male friendship, and an accessible entry point to Malayalam cinema. There is peril, injury and intense claustrophobia, along with drinking and rough language, so viewers with a fear of heights or enclosed spaces should be ready. Set aside a little over two hours; the tension makes it pass quickly once it takes hold.

If Manjummel Boys works for you, try:

• All We Imagine as Light, another acclaimed 2024 film about Malayali friendship tested far from home, in a much quieter key.
• Drishyam, the Hindi version of a Malayalam thriller, for more suspense built on ordinary people under pressure.

More in our adventure and thriller sections.

The verdict

Manjummel Boys is a tense, moving survival thriller that uses a real rescue to celebrate loyalty in its rawest form. Its opening is loose and some characters blur, but the cave sequences and the strength of the ensemble make it one of the standout Indian films of its year.

Rating: 4/5