REVIEW 774: FORENSIC

Release date:	February 28, 2020
Director:	Akhil Paul, Anas Khan
Cast: Language:	Tovino Thomas, Mamtha Mohandas, Reba Monica John, Saiju Kurup, Renji Panicker, Prathap Pothen, Rony David  Malayalam

Rithika Xavier (Mamtha Mohandas) is heading a police team investigating a child’s murder in Thiruvananthapuram when she realises she has a serial killer on her hands. Samuel John Kattukkaran (Tovino Thomas), the forensic scientist assigned to her, is a genius with a reputation for overreach. He has an old personal connection with Rithika.

From the moment Sam enters the picture, from the treatment and presentation of the character in his very first minutes on screen, we know it is he who will crack the case. Scenes are set up with the obvious intent of giving him an opportunity to prove his smartness. At first he patronises his junior colleague and throughout outshines the senior to whom he reports – both of them women, marking the token female presence so common in Malayalam cop sagas while men go about actually solving the crime/s at hand. 

Perhaps the only thing left was for Sam to wear a headband saying: “designated hero of the film.” Subtlety, you see, is not the forte of this crime thriller directed by Akhil Paul and Anas Khan. If you are willing to forgive Forensic its many venial sins on this front – since they are silly but never offensive in the way a certain kind of loud, misogynistic, male-star-driven Mollywood cinema is – you might enjoy this harmless crime drama up to a point, as I did. 

Until the last half hour or so when the killer is unveiled and motivations revealed, Forensic’s deductions are impressive enough and related in an easy enough fashion to make the film an entertaining ride. Sure, the background score should have been played down. Sure, several scenes are awkwardly constructed to pointlessly over-emphasise a point, but well, no one is saying Forensic is high art. Sure, an arrest made by Rithika in an old case recounted in the present was senseless, but that can be put down to standard police inefficiency, even if it seems inconsistent with the portrayal of Rithika. Sure, little thought has gone into two scenes of arrests when the police bring their suspects out in public with faces uncovered knowing that crowds are present outside. Sure, it is hard to believe that so many little girls were lured away by a charmless criminal. Sure all the above are true, but until that last half hour, Sam’s work sustains the film. 

I am not certain any Indian state police department has the facilities that Sam and his associate Shikha (Reba Monica John) have at their disposal – maybe they do, maybe they don’t, I am just wondering based on news reports and conversations with actual personnel that reveal how cripplingly ill-equipped police forces are in India. However, drawing on those very discussions, it does seem possible that a single Indian investigator might indeed have to be a Jack of all specialities within forensics, as Sam is shown to be in this film, due to a lack of available trained humanpower (far removed from the ultra-super-superspecialties I have been discovering through the addictive American real-life-crime series Forensic Files I have lately been binge-watching on Netflix). Either way, Sam is smart enough and his logic roughly convincing enough to a layperson for his investigation process to be engaging. 

Then the perpetrator is revealed, the identity is indeed unexpected, but Forensic sinks itself in the person’s convoluted, complicated, uninspiring back story. What made the recent release Anjaam Pathiraa so unforgettable was the heartbreaking crime that motivated its serial killer’s spree, the plausibility of the murder plan, the performances of the charismatic actors in that tragic back story and those bringing it to its present-day conclusion, plus the film’s insight into Kerala politics and society. In contrast, the reasons for the commission of the horrible crimes in Forensic are drowning in contrivances. Layer upon layer seems to have been added with the sole purpose of throwing in more surprises, except that they are not particularly meaningful or interesting. And since the audience has not been given an opportunity to be emotionally invested in the killer – either to be sympathetic or repulsed – it all adds up to a damp squib. 

The finale of this film is suicidal, trying too hard to be clever and ending up being too clever by half. 

This was really unnecessary, because Forensic is passable entertainment till then and some of the earlier unfolding twists are not half bad. It also has Thomas and Mohandas’ likeable personalities going for it and the actors’ comfort with their characters’ professions, Renji Panicker in a nice turn as a retired police official, an occasional sense of humour in the screenplay, the fact that it does not take the male protagonist down a conventional path of romance in the way most commercial Malayalam films do, and the other fact that he is not obnoxiously macho as so many leading men are in formulaic Mollywood police sagas.  

But what is a crime thriller if its central criminal is dull? The answer to that question is a summation of what Forensic has to offer.

Rating (out of 5 stars): 2.25

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	134 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/forensic-movie-review-tovino-thomas-mamtha-mohandas-starrer-is-clever-till-it-gets-too-clever-by-half-8103381.html

Posters courtesy: IMDB

REVIEW 690: ATHIRAN

Release date:	Kerala: April 12, 2019 Delhi: April 19, 2019
Director:	Vivek
Cast: Language:	Fahadh Faasil, Sai Pallavi, Atul Kulkarni, Leena, Surabhi Lakshmi, Sudev Nair, Leona Lishoy, Renji Panicker, Shanthi Krishna, Prakash Raj Malayalam with English

So Fahadh Faasil is human after all. Anyone thinking that New Malayalam Cinema’s poster boy could do no wrong after his dream run with the back-to-back arrival of Varathan, Njan Prakashan and KumbalangiNights in theatres in recent months is likely to be given pause by Athiran. Writer-director Vivek’s film does have a promising premise, but it struggles to stay afloat in the writing of the screenplay, the direction and even some of the acting. It coulda been a contender, as On The Waterfront’s Terry Malloy might have said, but what it ends up being instead is tepid fare. 

Athiran opens with an eerie scene in which a character played by Shanthi Krishna sees a bunch of unexplained bodies lying around her house. Fast forward to a few years later, and Fahadh Faasil’s character is headed to a home for the mentally ill in the Kerala countryside where he introduces himself as Dr M.K. Nair to the doctor-in-charge, Dr Benjamin Diaz (Atul Kulkarni). Nair reveals that he has been sent by medical authorities in Thiruvananthapuram to check on what are suspected to be questionable practices by Diaz.  

We gradually meet the inmates at the centre: a girl who dresses in a nun’s habit (Leona Lishoy), a dashing and loquacious young fellow (Sudev Nair), an oddly protective lady (Surabhi Lakshmi), an elderly professor who speaks repeatedly of schadenfreude (Vijay Menon), and others.

Dr Diaz and his suspicious Woman Friday, Renuka (played by Leena), resist Nair every step of the way, but soon he comes face to face with their most closely guarded patient: Nithya (Sai Pallavi). She is the present-day link to the dead people shown in the opening.

The best part of Athiran comes towards the beginning when Nair is on the road to Diaz’s place. Director of Photography Anu Moothedath’s camera wanders unfettered across the thickly green landscape, pulling up up and away to give us extreme high angle aerial shots, returning quietly to take a closer look at the ground, staying with Dr Nair and his fellow travellers as we listen to their chatter for a bit, wandering silently among and over trees, zooming out again and then coming back. Quite remarkably, it does all this without moving in a dizzying fashion, instead pacing itself slowly and giving those scenes a watchful air. The natural splendour of the region is inescapable as is the grandeur of the British colonial-era mansion from which Dr Diaz operates, but the overriding impression is of a land and a residence holding secrets that must be feared.

At first, Vivek’s collaboration with Moothedath and background score composer Ghibran succeeds in creating a sense of foreboding. But as time passes, the camera gets somewhat manipulative in a clichéd fashion (such as with that shot of just one of Fahadh Faasil’s eyes), and combined with an increasingly insistent score, starts chipping away at the ominous atmosphere rather than exacerbating it.

Considering the megaton wattage of the names in the credits, the acting is, surprisingly, a mixed bag. On the one hand there is Fahadh Faasil’s very intelligent performance, with some of its confusing aspects making absolute sense once the big reveal comes around in the end. On the other hand there is the usually dependable and remarkable Atul Kulkarni who over-acts throughout Athiran.

Sai Pallavi can perhaps be partly excused for her inconsistent performance, because her Nithya is meant to be autistic but Vivek (who wrote the story) and his co-writer P.F. Mathews (who did the screenplay and dialogues) don’t seem to have a well-rounded understanding of this developmental disorder, which is used in Athiran as nothing more than a tool to intimidate and confuse audiences. That said, actors have a responsibility to do their own research too, and the sharpness of Nithya’s gaze in the action scenes suggests insufficient homework done for this role. After having left a lasting impression as Malar Miss from Premam and the terrified Anjali from Kali, the solitary plus for this charismatic young Tamil-Telugu-Malayalam actor here is that Athiran shows her desire to experiment.

With the film floundering on the writing front right from the start, it is no surprise that other elements end up being shaky. Vivek probably had a good idea to begin with, but he and Mathews seem torn between wanting to make a paranormal thriller or a crime saga woven around a portrait of mental health. To throw us off their scent, they keep implying that the film is one or the other, but in the end, once the final twist is done and dusted, there are too many loose ends, red herrings and unconvincing motivations left hanging that the team seems not to have known how to tie up. Just think, for instance, of the painter who can see into the future among the patients at Dr Diaz’s home for the mentally ill.

In fact, after their introductory scenes, Nithya’s fellow patients are given nothing to remember them by beyond the defining quirk assigned to each one. Even the insertion of Kalari into the plot feels superfluous, an attempt perhaps to either divert attention from and/or provide an indigenous touch to the very obvious Hollywood source for the plot.

Besides, the narrative goes slack after a while. The musical interludes do not help at all, most especially that passage featuring a song in which a crucial character is shown romancing another in conventional commercial Indian cinema style.

It is hard to believe that Mathews was the writer of Ee.Ma.Yau., director Lijo Jose Pellissery’s incredibly beautiful funeral film released last year. The story of Athiran maybe Vivek’s, but the screenplay after all is Mathews’. Considering the expectations raised by the stellar credits, Athiran’s ordinariness is a big disappointment.

Rating (out of five stars): *3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	135 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/athiran-movie-review-fahadh-faasil-and-sai-pallavi-have-chosen-unwisely-6484841.html

Poster courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/FahadhFaasil/