Movie: Kathakali
Direction: Pandiraj
Cast: Vishal, Catherine Tresa
Music: Hiphop Tamizha
Cinematographer: Balasubramaniem
Editor: Pradeep E Ragav
Genre: Thriller, Action
Rating: ∗∗∗
What is it about: This film revolves around the protagonist Vishal, whose life goes topsy-turvy after one decisive phone call. This puts him and his entire family in to danger, leading to unfortunate events involving past and present incidents. Kathakali is directed by Pandiraj with Vishal in the lead along with Catherine Tresa.
Why it’s disappointing: This one here misleads the movie with the title, Kathakali is a dance form which involves facial and hand gestures describing the narration in the background rendered with music. But here that’s not the case though entirely, but tries to get close to it.
Director Pandiraj, who has been dishing out good films in the past slightly loses his touch by giving in to tradition of commercial cinema in the first half, which in fact makes you lose interest in the film. It keeps wandering like a lost soul. The movie has a short runtime, but half of it wasted with songs and annoying comedy scenes involving Vishal wooing Catherine Tresa. If at all that had been eliminated “Kathakali” would have been an engaging thriller.
What to watch out for: The second half gets on track and gives a direction to the lost soul from the first half. The film heats up with engaging events which invokes the lost interest. The movie in spite of clichés scores good marks due to gripping screenplay woven by Pandiraj. He made sure what’s lost earlier was made up.
Vishal has done a good job, nothing great or special but have done justice to the role pitched to him. The transformation was done quite smooth making it cinematically convincing.
Few comedy scenes involving Karunas were really funny easing the tension in the film. Mime Gopi did a commendable job along with Madhusudhan Rao.
Among the big bees and established actors, there was one character which stood out, the character of younger brother-in-law of Madhusudhan Rao played by Karthik Nagaraj. He did a great job, his body language, dialogue delivery and screen presence was perfect. He could really be a great villain/actor if been used rightly by our filmmakers.
The cinematography was racy by Balasubramaniem and was crisply edited by Pradeep Ragav. Music by Hip-Hop Tamizha was good, nothing great but was supported by a decent background score.
Verdict: Pandiraj might score again with this thriller too, which has cautiously executed second half supported by a commendable cast making it a success at the box office this Pongal.
