Religious bigotry and hatred, a peace-shattering societal agony, is as catastrophic as any unexpected natural calamity. Both wreak havoc, the fury of which none can escape. The oppressed, the dominant, the extremist, and the idealist are devastated by the former; the traveler, the bystander, and the ones within the safe walls of their homes are all drawn into the avalanche by the latter.
Malayalam film KURUTHI (Holy Slaughter)on Amazon Prime Video tries to bring this simple truth to the front page.
Story: Ibrahim (Roshan Mathew) is yet to come to terms with the loss of his wife and daughter in a devastating landslide that shook the hilly area a year ago. A devout Muslim, he now has doubts and starts questioning his faith. Disappointed with the way life has treated him, he looks forward to being with his dear daughter in heaven. His religious mentor tells him to pray when in doubt and listen to what the heart tells to do.
Ibru lives with his ill-tempered and sick father Moosa (Mamukkoya) and a partly-radicalized younger brother Rasool (Naslen). His neighbor and friend Suma and her brother Preman too are struggling to cope with the landslide tragedy. Unable to forget his wife, Preman finds solace in alcohol. Suma, in love with Ibru, helps the family of the three men with food, laundry, and other chores.
Life would have gone on this way for them in their tiny hillock but for that fateful night when Sub Inspector Sathyan (Murali Gopi) barges into their tiny home with Vishnu, a fanatic from the majority community who is on the run. In a fit of rage, Vishnu had murdered a senior shopkeeper from the minority community. While nabbing him and transferring him to the jail, the inspector and his constables are waylaid by men baying for Vishnu’s blood. The inspector needs a place to wait the night out and it happens to be Moosa’s home. Suma comes with food and she too is forced to stay back for the night.
With the arrival of the main antagonist Laiq (Prithviraj), all hell breaks loose and the hunter turns the hunted. Now there are US and THEM based on religion and hatred all the way. Irrespective of who is at fault, everyone has an opinion and strong affiliations.
Moosa, though ill-tempered and not knowledgeable, is practical and wise. As per him, the biggest curse of humans since time immemorial is their hatred for fellow humans; once kindled, it can burn down everything.
Performance: Considering the sensitive subject and violence involved, the performance of the entire star cast has an understated subtlety. The actor who stands tall is Mamukkoya as Moosa; he practices what he preaches irrespective of his age and ailment.
Prithviraj as the antagonist Laiq though makes a late entry, raises the tension multifold with his spine-chilling, stellar performance.
Srindaa’s Suma, the only female character with a meaty role, surprises everyone with her strong beliefs and reactions.
Roshan Mathew shines as Ibru; the lost soul who was thrust into a messy blood-and-gore affair, rises to meet the demands of every unexpected turn of events.
Murali Gopy’s subtle performance as the police inspector is short yet powerful, turning the story on its head.
Dialogues are hard-hitting and Cinematography excellent. The entire story unfolds overnight and the cinematographer and his camera play a major role in its success.
Our society is responsible for producing the likes of Laiq, Naslen, and Vishnu-men and women with a wrong sense of injustice meted out to them, ready to avenge, kill, and rewrite history. The MOVIE THAT NEITHER TAKES SIDES NOR PREACHES is an eye-opener to everyone. It’s left to the viewer to draw his/her own judgment. A MUST Watch for its relevance in our lives today.
Except for a slightly exaggerated and filmy penultimate scene and some amount of superficiality (should be excused considering the sensitive storyline), the movie is more real than reel.
Four Thrillers that I loved Watching in the order of my preference
๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐๐๐ฃ (๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐รฉ๐ฃ๐) – ๐๐ก๐๐ช๐จ๐ฉ๐ง๐ค๐ฅ๐๐ค๐๐๐ ๐๐ก๐ค๐ฃ๐ ๐ฌ๐๐ฉ๐ ๐2 ๐จ๐๐ค๐ง๐ฉ๐๐๐ can be ๐๐ฃ ๐ค๐ข๐๐ฃ๐ค๐ช๐จ ๐ง๐๐๐๐ฅ๐ ๐๐ค๐ง ๐๐๐จ๐๐จ๐ฉ๐๐ง
Opening shot: A masked face is gasping for breath. With utmost effort, the mask is torn apart from the face and a woman starts hyperventilating. Frantically, her hands pry open the rest of the netted cocoon she is placed in; the distraught woman is now visible in a prone position in a coffin-like cryogenic pod.
The entire movie is shot inside this cryogenic chamber. Due to a malfunctioning in the chamber, the woman wakes up from her hypersleep with no memory, and no identity. A masculine voice from an AI console, MILO, is her only help. Addressed by MILO as ‘Bioform,’ with a number assignedโOmicron 267, her struggle forโโ survival has an uncanny similarity to the O2 crisis in our pandemic-ridden country. Every few minutes, the AI reminds Omicron-267 of the depleting oxygen inside the pod. Her survival depends on her ability to get out of the chamber before she runs out of oxygen.
Every emotion of the bioform is felt by the viewerโher dejection, elation, and minor success. At intervals, her visual memory flashes in bits and pieces, aiding her to piece together her identityโDr. Liz Hansonโa cryogenic expert. Much later, she realizes that she is married and her husband had taken ill.
All through this turmoil, she has to keep calm, else she would die from asphyxiation earlier than the stipulated hour that MILO said she has. Her options are limited. Her prime concern about the location of the pod and how she finds herself inside the pod are still baffling her.
Fighting the odds, will Omicron-267, now Liz, be able to find her way out of the cryogenic chamber?
Can a single actor hold a movie on her own? Yes, Melanie LeBlanc, ably assisted by the voice of Mathieu Amalric as MILO, keeps the viewer on tenterhooks from the very word go. For a movie totally on the shoulders of one woman on a claustrophobic chamber with an impersonal AI as her only support system, this is no mean achievement.
Director Alexandre Aja is a mastermind at creating ripples of anxious moments inside the pod that multiplies in intensity inside every viewer.
Writer Christie LeBlanc knows how to use minimal words to maximum effect. Unless O-267 asks the right questions to MILO and to the outside world through MILO, she can’t get to her past.
โToward the climax, as expected, the viewer will get to know the true identity of the bioform. Should the truth baffle anyone? I donโt think so. It’s a very plausible end to a high drama in an enclosed chamber with depleting oxygen.
2. Nayattu- reel imitating real – politically motivated high-intensity drama
Three members of police force (Praveenโa new recruit, Manianโan old hand with 20 years of experience in police force, and Sunithaโthe woman police) work in the same police station. The movie starts with small, isolated incidents, implying the work pressure in police force, and how policemen are forced to tow the line at every step with no questions asked especially if the orders are from political bosses.It will take some time to realize that it’s a preview of more sinister things to come.
When the reels roll on, those unrelated incidents will start making sense. Here on, the hunters become the hunted wreaking havoc on three innocent lives and their families.
On orders from the supreme authority, these three are chased like criminals for a crime they didnโt commit. When one of the them takes his life after leaving suicide note in the hope that the truth can be brought to light and his daughter could live with her head held high, the viewer expects justice for them. Simple, straight, vote-bank politics from the chief minister down to the grassroot worker. Police force, in order to save own skin, chair, and promotion, chase the innocent in spite of the evidence.
A movie that will haunt you for days and will make you seethe at the state of affairs of ordinary citizens.
Performance: For want of better words, I would say that all the three protagonists competed with each other in giving their very best. Yes, Kunchacko Boban as the man with empathy and control over his emotions, Joju George who values his fatherhood above everything, and Nimisha as the silent sufferer, they simply outdid each other.
It is a must-watch movie for all who love genuine, realistic movies – films that reflect real life.
3. ATHIRAN – The One Beyond Reach
Itโs year 1967; Lakshmi barges into her old, palatial home; to her horror, she discovers dead bodies of all three of her siblings. Her autistic niece Nitya is found in a mentally agitated state.
Cut to the present. Dr. Kannan Nair, a dashing young man, designated by the authorities to look into malpractices, suicides, and disappearing bodies in a mental asylum arrives the institution located far away from the hustle-bustle of the city.
A beautiful bungalow situated in the midst of acres of breathtakingly beautiful nature, converted into a mental asylum and run by psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin, has too many skeletons in its cupboard. The doctor treats his rich, mentally-unstable patients by outdated methods and by instilling fear.
What’s the secret behind Nityaโthe feeble-looking yet strong-as-a-rock sixth patient of Benjamin for whom there is no record? Dr. Nair, in his eagerness to get to the bottom of this mystery, gets into the bad books of Dr. Benjamin. Two failed murder attempts on him wonโt prevent Nair from protecting Nitya. Dr. Benjamin openly warns him when he says, ‘SHEEP DON’T HUNT, THEY ARE TO BE HUNTED.’
Tension in the movie builds up as it progresses and the story that unfolds has many surprises.
Fahad Faazil, as usual, takes the responsibility of the movie’s success on his shoulders. Sai Pallavi is amazingly beautiful, and even with hardly any dialogue, excels as the martial art expert with autism. In this world where accumulation of wealth is all that matters, itโs easy to believe the existence of a quirky psychiatrist like Dr. Benjamin and his cronies.
Amazing location and cinematography to match.
The ability of some of the patients in the asylum to predict or to foresee events in the near-future is a little far-fetched.
Overall, Athiran stands out as a thriller with its intriguing plot and memorable performances.
4.NIZHAL- Shadows That Loom Large Over a Young Mind
A lone night owl sitting on a tree branch, and a speeding car at a hairpin bend crashes into the culvert aheadโopening scene. Jump to the next shot, and the accident victim with a fancy mask is discharged from a hospital. He is John Baby, the young magistrate now fighting PTSD hallucinations. (His superhero mask is to fix broken cartilage of his nose bridge.)๐
Nitin, the eight-year-old son of Sharmila, has a flair for gory stories; not for him the normal fairytales or superhero stories. During a storytelling session in his classroom, he shocks his teacher and classmates with grisly details of a murder.
Along with child psychologist Shalini, Baby, and Sharmila (a well-placed single mom) try to get to the bottom of Nitinโs gruesome stories. Together, they want to save Nitin from this harrowing experience. They can do it only if they know if itโs a fabrication of Nitinโs mind or some other unseen and unheard hand playing a role in it.
Baby starts his enquiry in the garb of a Ph.D. thesis. His first research on a whim unfurls evidence of a murder committed 27 years ago. Skull deep inside a pond, and dead body dumped in a swamp, all tumble out.
Baby and Sharmila now look for ways to save Nitin from these psychosomatic nightmares. Baby thinks his illusions too are linked to this.
The movie is neither a superman/spiderman adventure nor has it the edge-of-the-seat thrill of a mystery. However, itโs a one-time watch for sure. The director probably expected a great psychological thriller, but it turned out to be more of an easygoing investigation of a few murders committed decades ago. โWhat next?โ moments are rare in the movie.
Performance: Adorable Izin Hash as young Nitin gives a memorable performance; one will fall in love with his endearing, dimpled smile.
Kunchacko Boban as the young judge is good; somehow, dialogues are minimal and emotions and body language play a role here. Nayanthara as Sharmila looks amazingly pretty and elegant but thatโs it. An actress of her caliber is wasted here.
Sudhas_Musings 