Shruthy Menon – Movies of the Soul

Vampire Owl: I had some high expectations about this one.

Vampire Bat: But we waited for its release on Jio Hotstar to be sure.

Vampire Owl: And here we are here again to watch another investigation.

Vampire Bat: I do like the cast very much with this one.

Vampire Owl: We love it when they have performers over the superstars.

Vampire Bat: Yes, in the world of super stars, mega stars, power stars, young stars and whatever.

Vampire Owl: Stars kill every movie industry, don’t they?

Vampire Bat: We can agree about that towards infinity in a world of chaos.

Vampire Owl: How many movies with investigation can still stand the test of time?

Vampire Bat: As long as they have psycho killers, serial murderers and such interesting people.

[Gets a plate of paneer tikka and three cups of Sikkim tea].

What is the movie about? :: Probation SI Ajeeb (Roshan Mathew) is working in his first police station which seems to be located in a comparatively peaceful area. He is leading a happy life with Shehna (Athulya Chandra) with no children and memories of a past in which he had lost his sister in a train at a very long age. Though Ajeeb works hard and tries to be a good husband, he is quietly haunted by his childhood trauma of losing his younger sister and has panic attacks whenever he hears the sound of passing trains – he never travels in trains anymore; even when there is no direct buses, and during times when he has to travel more distance taking a longer path, he chooses to travel by road. His biggest support is his experienced colleague ASI Joy (Baiju Santhosh), who with his wife Molly Joy (Divya M Nair), a couple who is waiting for their first child and undergoing treatments which do not seem to work for them. He advices Ajeeb on cases as he is more experiences than him, even though not higher in rank.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: Ajeeb finds himself with his first major case which is rather sensational in nature when the decomposed body of an unidentified woman is found in an abandoned local well. Ajeeb begins digging deep into the case despite his seniors’ doubts about his capability. They identify the dead person as Shobha (Shruthy Menon), a migrant worker from Karnataka who had moved to Kerala with her husband and two young children, and started living in the border area. But her husband and children seem to be missing, but after some more digging deep into the situation, Ajeeb and Joy track down Shobha’s husband, Raju (Vinod Sagar) in Karnataka with the help of the local police there. As Raju offers emotional stories and conflicting statements related to their lives and those incidents which changed their lives in between, police face different complications. They will need the help of a Mumbai police officer, Keerthi Deshpande (Saiyami Kher) in this to their surprise too. Can the two policemen find a solution here in time?

The defence of Uyir :: There are not many movies which can bring humanity to a tale of more than one murder and following investigation, but this one takes that and places the same at the right place to keep the interest of the family audience alive, it seems. As this is supposed to be inspired by actual police records of Kerala, everything feels grounded and realistic, and the last few moments feel very much close to heart. There are not many investigative movies that touches the heart, but this one does, even though the same is achieved a little late. The policemen are shown as common men, even though the women police officers could have also had something to do like the movie Dridam which had more balance and a higher level of danger and twists associated with it. The feeling of mystery is still maintained right from the behind. The character detailing is nice, especially with the main character, who is played to perfection by Roshan Mathew with classic support from the rest of the cast. At the same time, the message of humanity works, and the journey here is without exaggeration close to realism.

The claws of flaw :: The story here drags during the middle by trying to force suspense and twists into a story that seems to be more or less like an emotional character journey rather than anything else. Some of these twists do not seem to belong here at all, and the investigation also seems to be done randomly without much trouble. The melodrama often gets out of control, and we often think why this is going the emotional path when finding the killer was of so much significance. The final few minutes feel like the weakest as the movement from a usual murder mystery to a human-centric drama goes through a struggle, especially with the search being just a random thing of no real significance, even with the humane side. The way in which the pace goes down so many times, and the way in which the police keep focusing on a person, who keeps on becoming the centre of attraction again and again with one thing or other – it feels like repetition for sure. Everything seems more like coming to the police directly, and after they complicate things, the situation seems to be solved rather easily too, and then they extend the same to add more complications.

The performers of the soul :: The movie thrives on a brilliant performance from Roshan Mathew, who seems to make a police officer that we would remember. He is once again not a hero that one needs to remember for the superhuman acts, but as a flawed police officer, the kind that we have always loved as one among us. The emotional conflicts of the character are shown nicely too, and we have Athulya Chandra in the wife role, as the two share beautiful chemistry with underlying love and support which runs through their marriage with understanding. Athulya might be one of those actresses who had less number of main roles in major movies than she deserved, as she carries a certain amount of life even when playing this character who never really had that much to work with. Baiju Santhosh’s Joy is also a character whom we would all love, and he handles the same with a serenity that everyone should love see. The star of Kismat, the highly underrated Shruthy Menon also comes up with a work to remember with her return, and Vinod Sagar remains solid. Vineeth Thattil David, Santhosh Thrivikraman and Saiyami Kher are also police officers who catch our attention so well with their realistic work.

How it finishes :: As Roshan Mathew brings both restraint and emotional depth to his character carrying the film’s themes of guilt, remorse, empathy and redemption effectively, we have the movie’s mood and aim served well. The question still remains if this was the aim which the audience would have had considering the fact that this a movie revolving around one murder or two, along with a murderer on the loose manipulating the police. The thrills are kept at the minimum, and we feel that there was the scope for many engaging sequences with chance of bringing chaos always present against all odds. One can safely say that drama gets to be a lot above the thrills and the investigation itself, which would always be considered strange as we look at the genre here. We keep thinking if it is what we wanted, and a strange feel-good factor that creeps in to bring a conclusion with a happy ending in a journey which is rather personal than part of the case, would not bring the best for everyone for sure. Well, this is not your highly engaging, highly paced, intelligent and twisted police investigation for sure.

Release date: 26th June 2026
Running time: 138 minutes
Directed by: M Padmakumar
Starring: Roshan Mathew, Saiyami Kher, Baiju Santhosh, Athulya Chandra, Shruthy Menon, Vineeth Thattil David, Santhosh Thrivikraman, Vinod Sagar, Shaju Sreedhar, Divya M Nair, Srikant Murali, Mahesh Shetty

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@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

What is the movie about? :: The movie tells the love story of Irfan (Shane Nigam) and Anita (Shruthy Menon) in the coastal town of Ponnani, in the district of Malappuram. Irfan is a twenty three year old Muslim boy from a rich and influential family that has big businesses running in the town, and he doesn’t have a full-time job after dropping out of engineering course; neither does he tries to get one. Anita is a twenty eight year old scheduled caste Hindu girl who is financially not sound, and is a research scholar at the nearby college. They meet after Irfan’s modified motor-bike hits Anita’s mother who was crossing the road. He gets her to the hospital and takes care of her until her relatives arrive. Anita and the other relatives are hostile to her in the beginning, but she understands that there is no mistake on his part. Irfan continues to visit them until her mother discharged from the hospital.

Where are things heading for? :: They see each other on more occasions later, and he also helps her with the project which is related to the mosques of the town. As they realize that love has blossomed and it won’t be supported by anybody in their respective families due to the difference in religions, social status and the negative age difference, they decide to go to the police station for protection. But what they don’t realize is that the police is an integral part of the society, and it doesn’t exist separate from the people of the town which includes their own families. Sub Inspector Ajay C Menon (Vinay Forrt) is not the kind of person who likes to move that much away from the society that he lives in; he refuses to be divergent – he doesn’t approve of this relationship for the same reason. The same is the case of ASI Nair (Sunil Sukhada), as they call for their relatives to arrive at the police station. Now, what happens next means trouble for the young couple.

The defence of Kismath :: The two big movies with similar theme of forbidden love, Thattathin Marayathu and Ennu Ninte Moideen were taken over by the commercial side, and the next talked about flick with inter-caste love story, Annayum Rasoolum was just hours of drag that made us hate the protagonists – it was only when the heroine died in the end that we were relieved, but then too, things were of not much of a purpose. But Kismath has this in control, with fine visuals and depicting usual incidents in a realistic way – there is also a realistic ending. As it is well-executed, we feel the emotional depth, and the two protagonists go straight into our hearts. This one has a five plus years older heroine, and so things were going to be more difficult, as we can see in the proceedings of this movie. We not only get into the lives of the protagonists, but also into the lives of the people of the particular town.

Claws of flaw :: Even though not as slow as the slowest movie in this century’s Malayalam movie list called Annayum Rasoolum, this one is also somewhat slow, which will make it difficult for a good number of entertainment loving fans to stay with this one. There are also the two protagonists who have no job of their own, trying to oppose the families to which they are attached, which was sure to have terrible consequences – a case of bad thinking from their part. It is also strange that even if this movie says that it depicts the life of real life people who faced a situation like this, there is no mention of what happened to them in the end – we never knew such a situation from the news, and so we do wonder how things went with them after watching this movie. The songs are also not that interesting, and a little more of the town outside the police station would have brought more for this movie. There was more scope for this love story, as you will realize when watching it.

Performers of the soul :: Shruthy Menon has the biggest role of her career, and she does her job really well – there is just a controlled performance here, which she does without the emotional overdose which the movies like these tend to have. Shane Nigam, son of Abi, whom we know from earlier movies and has been a popular mimicry artist, is also in control here in his first lead role in a movie – it is interesting to note that he made his acting debut as a grown-up in Annayum Rasoolum which has a similar theme to deal with. The director, Shanavas K Bavakkutty who is also a debutante, has made this one work smoothly, throughout its run. Alencier Ley Lopez continues his form, while Vinay Forrt has the most noticable role, and he does that with ease becoming the Sub Inspector character. Sunil Sukhada is the next one we notice at the police station.

Soul exploration :: This movie is different, that is for sure. It is not an entertainer like the other two movies with similar settings, Thattathin Marayathu and Ennu Ninte Moideen which presented the Hindu-Muslim love stories, and neither is this one like Annayum Rasoolum which was so boring and slow that one would have wanted to jump of a cliff instead of watching that one for three hours – yes, the lesser run-time comes as a boon for this movie, and as it never tries to be funny or stylish, we are without those terrible marketing strategies. What we have here is surely closer to the lives of the common people. We are also able to connect to the protagonists better, and feeling their pain is easier because they are just common people who are confused about what to do when both their families don’t agree to their marriage. So, they go for the option that seems to be safe for them, even though they are not that much informed about how things would go from there.

How it finishes :: Kismath has tried and has become the movie that Annayum Rasoolum should have been. It is solid in what it does, and even when not that fast, manages to be not dragging like Annayum Rasoolum had been. What works for Kismath differently is that it is less of the romantic tale, and it is more of the consequences of love, for what comes after the love story is the trouble, and what they suffer. It is fate or rather the destiny that has awaited the lovers for a long time – it is more of going towards that uncertainty with certainty. This is the kind of movie that you need to watch if you like to go through a simple, yet emotional experience without the melodrama and unnecessary commercial aspects – this is love without those colours, and this the “kismath” that could await more than one person if done without thinking about society, as people will be like that only – there is no change coming.

Release date: 29th July 2016
Running time: 103 minutes
Directed by: Shanavas K Bavakkutty
Starring: Shane Nigam, Shruthy Menon, Vinay Forrt, Alencier Ley Lopez, Sajitha Madathil, Surabhi Lakshmi, P. Balachandran, Sunil Sukhada, Anil Nedumangad, Vijayan Karanthoor, Jayaprakash Kuloor, Binoy Nambala