The last half an hour of the movie Anchakkallakokkan (thank God I am not doing a video review) is occurring inside one police station, and there is a lot of violence happening. The idea of Ullas Chemban is perhaps to show the transformation of a character through a life-changing event. But the problem is with the movie’s writing, which is extremely generic in building certain characters and once one of the main characters undergoes that transformation, you won’t feel the cinematic high Ullas and co-writer Vikil Venu may have envisioned.
The story is happening in 1986 because there is a reference to the Thankamani incident in the film. The murder of a prominent man named Chaapra has happened, and since the elections are around the corner, there is a lot of pressure on the police to nab the people behind it. Precisely at that time, a new police constable named Vasudevan joined that station, and the inexperienced one went through a really hard first few days, and the only man who showed some mercy to him was his senior Nadavaramban. The events that unfold in that village after the murder of Chaapra are what we see in this film.
On paper, there are these catchy ideas of creating multiple tracks for Vasudevan, the kids of Chaapra, Padmini and Shankaran so that, when it culminates, it will feel like a showdown. But the lack of finesse in the writing is causing issues in the execution as some tracks feel inconsequential, the Padmini one for example. Even when there is bloodshed happening in the movie’s final act, except for the entry of the sons of Chaapra, everything else is extremely guessable, and it was pretty much like we, as an audience, were waiting for that to happen. Somewhere, I felt if Vasudevan’s character was played by a new face, an element of surprise would have been there in the final moments.
Chamban Vinod plays the role of the cool cop Nadavaramban, and in his signature style, he fits the part. The transition happening to the character looks pretty subtle in the movie’s climax and Chemban keeps it row. Lukman Avaran is playing this character who is not comfortable with violence, and there is an extensive enough backstory that explains why he is like that. The character also has two shades, and somewhere I felt the higher pitches of both these shades looked a bit too animated. Manikandan Achari plays a crucial role in the film along with Megha Thomas, Sreejith Ravi, Senthil Krishna, etc.
Ullas Chemban has used this technique of showing different angles of one particular event multiple times in the movie, and that somewhere shows the fact that he knows how basic the concept is. There is no wow factor to the story, and they are trying to add that predominantly through the staging of the scenes. But like I said, when they are trying this ambitious violent set piece inside the police station in the climax, the effort may well be genuine, but we can kind of see where it is going. Another major issue is that you won’t feel like rooting for any of the characters on an emotional level. The childhood angle of Vasudevan, the daughter story of Shankaran and what happened to Padmini’s husband are all supposed to amplify the emotional pitch when it all culminates in the climax, but the writing just couldn’t achieve that.
Anchakkallakokkan has tried to have this layered approach towards a very basic revenge story by infusing multiple characters with various histories into it. But none of these stories has that depth to connect with the audience on an emotional level, and hence, the gore fest in the finale feels more like an effort to cover up the superficial writing of the movie.
The gore fest in the finale feels more like an effort to cover up the superficial writing of the movie.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
