Mannar Mathai Speaking is a 1995 Indian Malayalam-language comedy-drama film produced and directed by Mani C. Kappan and written by Siddique-Lal. The stars Mukesh, Saikumar, Innocent, Vani Viswanath and Biju Menon. It is a sequel to the 1989 filmRamji Rao Speaking, and is followed by Mannar Mathai Speaking 2. The film was a commercial success at the box office. Priyadarshan adapted certain subplots of the film for his Hindi film, Bhagam Bhag, which went on to be remade in Telugu as Brahmanandam Drama Company. Writer Siddique later reused the story and tweaked it for his Tamil movieSadhu Miranda and Telugu movieMaaro.
Plot
Mannar Mathai is now running a drama group under Urvashi Theatres. The lead actors in this troupe, Gopalakrishnan and Balakrishnan, always fight with each other for the lead role in the drama. During Urvashi Theatre'sfirst stage show, Gopalakrishnan was supposed to act like slapping the heroine, but he ends up slapping her for real, and hard. The hurt heroine leaves the troupe accepting the invitation to act in a movie. The drama troupe soon faces trouble without a lead actress. Since Gopalakrishnan was the guy who created all the trouble, he took up the responsibility to find an actress. All his efforts to find a lead actress go in vain. During the course of his search, while he was travelling in a taxi, a girl named "Meera" jumps in front of the car to commit suicide. Gopalakrishnan rescues her and brings her to the drama camp. When she regains consciousness, they make her the lead actress of the troupe. To get the role of the hero, Gopalakrishnan mocks her as his cousin, and she will only act if they make him the hero. Balakrishnan, however, does not readily believe in this and he brings Gopalakrishnan's mom to the camp to clarify. When the truth was about to come out, Gopalakrishnan tells his mom that he told everyone that she is his cousin because he is in love with her. His mom asks him to marry her. With no way out, they try to mock their marriage in front of all. After the marriage, Meera tries to commit suicide again by jumping into the well. Gopalakrishnan slaps her and she loses consciousness. They all take her to the doctor where she gains consciousness. She then says that she does not remember anyone from the troupe and she is the wife of a wealthy businessman called Mahendra Varma. They inform this news to Mahendra Varma, and he comes and takes her to his home. Later she calls Gopalakrishnan and says that she is going to commit suicide, and they all rush to their home. By that time she had lit herself, and they all could only watch her die. After 3 months, when the troupe was in Mangalore, Balakrishnan happens to see Meera on the roadside. She reappears in their home later and tells them the truth. She said that her real name is Stella, and Meera was the name of Mahendra Varma's real wife played by Geetha Vijayan. It was his real wife who died that day. He had hired an actress to act as if she was Meera and to provide proof that she had suicidal tendencies. They tried to take revenge against Mahendra Varma and put him behind bars. Mahendra Varma kidnaps Gopalakrishnan's mother and bargains with Gopalakrishnan to bring Stella to them. In the meantime, Ramji Rao also surfaces. He kidnaps Meera and bargains money. Now Gopalakrishnan is trapped in between two kidnapping attempts, and he has to rescue both his mom and his wife. In the hilarious situations, Mathai getting a suitcase of money drinking alcohol between the fight, using their clever tactics, Gopalakrishnan and his gang rescue them both. Mahendra Varma falls off from the top of a building and everyone thinks he died, while his body falls in the truck driven by Ramji Rao, and he drives off.
