written by Siddique-Lal. He then played the role of a petty thief in Manyanmar. This was his first onscreen pairing with Sreenivasan. The following year, he starred in the Balachandra Menon directorial Ammayane Sathyam. The film was also a box office success, running for 100 days in theatres. The next year, he starred in Malappuram Haji Mahanaya Joji, another box office success. It ran for 125 days in theatres and was one of the highest grossers of the year. By the mid-1990's Mukesh got stuck in an image trap, usually of a young man behaving, or thought to be behaving fraudulently under pressure, such as a bribe taking policeman, a thief on the run, or someone lying to impress his parents, or to get a job. The mid-1990's also signaled the end of the golden age of comedy. In 1995, most of his films were failures at the box office, sparring a few such as Sipayi Lahala and Mannar Mathai Speaking (the sequel to Ramji Rao Speaking). The consecutive failures of his films forced him move on to supporting roles. He appeared in a supporting role to Mammootty in the 1996 comedy-drama film Hitler, directed by Siddique of the Siddique-Lal duo. Hitler became the highest-grossing Malayalam film at the time, and completed a 300-day theatrical run. It became the most viewed film in the history of Mollywood. He then starred in Sibi Malayil's 1996 film Kanakkinavu, which was screened at the Indian Panorama section of the IFFI and won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration. The film was also commercially successful. The next year, all of his films except for Kalyana Kacheri, bombed at the box office. The following year, he starred in Mattupetti Machan, which was one of the highest grossers of the year and ran for 100 days in theatres. It was remade in Tamil as Banda Paramasivam, in Hindi as Housefull 2. He then made a cameo appearance as himself in the highly successful Sreekrishnapurathe Nakshathrathilakkam. 1999 was a successful year for Mukesh as he starred in two super-hits namely, Friends, which was the highest grosser of the year (He starred alongside Jayaram for the first time in 7 years and Sreenivasan) and alongside Divya Unni in the Vinayan directorial Aakasha Ganga, which was the fourth highest grossing film of the year. Later career In the 2000s and 2010s, he struggled to