With Mahesh Narayanan’s Patriot releasing soon, audiences are witnessing a cinematic event that might never take place again. It’s the 56th time that THR India cover star Mammootty and actor Mohanlal will share screen space in a movie. They were last seen on screen together in full-fledged roles in the 2008 blockbuster Twenty:20.
Here’s a brief history of Malayalam cinema’s most bankable collaboration and the films that were made possible only because Mammootty and Mohanlal's friendship was always much bigger than their stardom.
It began in 1981, just a year after Mohanlal made his debut in Fazil’s Manjil Virinja Pookal. The two actors first shared a frame in I.V. Sasi’s Ahimsa— both finding their footing, both headed somewhere extraordinary. A year later, they were cast in Padayottam, a mega-budget adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo directed by Jijo Punoose.
The film made history as the first in India to be shot in 70mm, but it offered another curiosity too: Mammootty playing Mohanlal’s father, despite the two being roughly the same age.
Brothers, Always
The roles they took on together were rarely straightforward. In the 1985 drama Avidathe Pole Ivideyum, they played best friends who decided to take their friendship to the next level by marrying each other's sisters — a setup that practically wrote its own conflict. In Sasi’s Aalkoothathil Thaniye, they were college hostel roommates navigating love, heartbreak and the occasional rendezvous. Despite sharing just a handful of scenes, Mohanlal’s presence alone made a compelling case for picking yourself up after heartbreak.
The films could get darker, too. Lakshmana Rekha (1984) cast Mammootty and Mohanlal as brothers whose moral compass spun wildly off course,̦ both entangled in a complex, charged relationship with the same woman. Then there was Nanayam (1983) where they played stepbrothers living a spectacularly decadent life, until responsibilities came knocking.
Most of the almost 50 movies they made together were in the first half of the 1980s, with I.V. Sasi directing many of them. This was also the era when both actors were churning out as many as 30 films a year — a pace that made their frequent pairings not just possible but almost inevitable. Much like the collaborations between Tamil megastars Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth, the joint appearances began to taper off once individual superstardom took hold. When either one alone could fill a theatre, the industry had little reason to put both in the same film and split salaries.
Going Solo
The split — if one can call it that — is generally debated to be either 1986 or 1987. By this point, Mammootty and Mohanlal had appeared together in 44 films. But in the four decades since, they’ve averaged roughly one collaboration every four years.
Both actors found success during those years. Mammootty, after a series of flops and disappointments, regained top status with the 1987 release, New Delhi. Mohanlal, meanwhile, became the industry’s youngest superstar with Rajavinte Makan — a script that had originally been written for Mammootty. Both films were penned by the same writer, Dennis Joseph.
Fan and Superstar
That shared history with Joseph seeded one more Malayalam cinema tradition. When Joseph directed his first film, Manu Uncle (1988), he cast Mammootty in the lead as the titular character and got Mohanlal to play a cameo as himself…superstar Mohanlal, no less. Mammootty’s character Manu Uncle spends much of the film name-dropping his friendship with Mohanlal with barely concealed pride.
Two years later, the favour was returned. In No. 20 Madras Mail, Mohanlal played Tony, a spoilt, endearingly unhinged Mammootty fanboy who happens to share a train ride to Madras with his idol. The scene where a drunk Tony asks if he can kiss Mammootty on the cheek is comedic gold, but it’s also something more: a wink at the genuine warmth between two men who have spent decades orbiting each other’s careers.
It’s the kind of ease that can’t be faked — and it’s exactly what audiences are hoping to see again when the two reunite in Patriot.