I wasn’t a huge fan of the first action film of Cubes Entertainment, Marco, as I found it a hollow revenge thriller that used extreme violence and stylization as a shield to cover up a flat story. A hero who couldn’t save his big family, taking a shower, spraying perfume, wearing sunglasses, and going to kill the villains in a tuxedo was unintentionally funny for my sensibilities. The second movie from the same producer, Kattalan, has one of the characters from the Marco movie, and it seems like the plan is/was to make this a universe kind of thing. The one thing I said as a positive about Marco was the fact that it sort of gave the audience an assurance that certain production qualities we see in big-scale films from other languages are feasible in Malayalam. But when it comes to Kattalan, you won’t even feel like appreciating that aspect of the movie. Despite having violent sequences, chases, and stunts, Kattalan feels like a dull film with zero redeeming qualities.
So the story is set against the backdrop of a fictional village named Aanakkolli, and a gangster named Maari controls the whole village and the entire area, as the main business is killing elephants to get their tusk. Since it is an illegal business, there was a rival to Maari. What we see here are the things that unfold when a man named Antony enters this picture.
The script of this movie is basically a collage of almost all the gangster films that have been released to date. The backstories of gangsters, the “Valayar Paramashivam” tactics of the hero, and the entry of unexpected helpers, they have basically done good research on what to extract from where. The only issue is that they have forgotten the fact that we have also seen all these movies. Hence, when we see the hero failing, we can clearly guess that it is a buildup. Just like Marco, in this movie too, we have certain characters who are shown as these massy, stylish villains, but their deaths have that unintentional comedy vibe. Towards the end of the movie, one can clearly see the film being too hasty to conclude the whole thing, and the much hyped mid credit scenes are just efforts to create an illusion of this whole universe being something grand.
Antony Varghese, with that haircut and physique, looks believable as this saviour kind of character. But whenever he starts to say dialogues, it’s like he memorized all those lines and said them in one go. Even in action sequences, there isn’t much grace, and I guess that’s the reason why the cuts in the movie are too much. Sunil plays the part of Maari, and even though it is an extensive character, the film uses him in a very monotonous way. Kabir Duhan Singh plays the part of another bad guy named Eddy, and it was more or less an inconsequential character, much like the other cartel members. Jagadish gets a crucial character that isn’t really a challenge for someone like him. In the second half, when Dushara Vijayan appears, it was almost like you suddenly remember she was there in the character posters. Other than holding the gun and saying 5 lines, there is nothing much here for her to do. Parth Tiwari plays the role of one of the villains, and his buildup and what eventually happens with him are somewhat funny. I really feel this trend of casting influencers and social media figures just for the sake of scamming their followers should end. I mean, what was the purpose of bringing in this influencer named Call Me Venom? Hipster who had something to do in Aavesham has nothing to do here. Singer Hanan Shah, whose most attractive feature is his voice, has zero dialogue. He is driving a lot of heavy vehicles in the first half, and that may have helped him buy that new Urbania.
The writing of this Paul George movie is never going beyond the basic character mapping level. It is almost like they don’t have clarity on where to emphasize. Neither the drama nor the action in this movie is able to create any impact. I don’t know whether it is because of the criticism they got for Marco in terms of the level of violence, but Kattalan stays away from extreme gore and brutality. The placement of action blocks is almost done to keep the audience engaged by making sure that something loud is always there on screen. The edits of the fight, especially in the climax fight, are so chaotic that you just don’t get an idea of how the hero is getting beaten up. The cinematography with the shadow-heavy, warm lighting and higher frame rate is only making sure that the style is there in every frame. The much hyped elephant sequence falls flat as it clearly lacked believability. Ravi Basrur’s theme music is pretty much in his signature zone, and they are trying to amplify the film by adding those tracks. Unfortunately, it just couldn’t create any sort of high.
Even if you disagree with me on my take on Marco, the chances of you disagreeing with me on Kattalan are very low. For the sake of scale, they have done all the hard work by going to authentic locations, signing big actors for pan-India reach, building large sets, and even getting some big names for the hyped post-credit scenes. But the time investment given to writing the screenplay of this movie was much less. Hiring Unni R to write dialogues might work to create a buzz, but to write good dialogues, even he needs to see something exciting on paper.
