SPOILER ALERT! The entire climax of the movie Kadaram Kondan has Vikram’s character KK walking into a police station wearing a mere half jacket of police as a disguise (The second best disguise after Clark Kent’s glasses). He is a wanted criminal in the police records and while he almost makes a chaotic scene inside that huge building, nobody recognizes him and I am supposed to believe that it is cool. Kadaram Kondan, the official adaptation of the 2010 French film Point Blank is supposed to be an edge of the seat thriller. But director Rajesh M Selva is sort of obsessed with showing the swagger of his hero and the experience we get is largely dull and exhausting.
A young couple who just moved to Malaysia is our primary focus. The husband Vasu is a doctor and on his initial day itself husband has to deal with a medical case of a wanted criminal named KK. Because he got involved in the picture, Vasu, gets into a mess and his wife Aatirah gets abducted by unknown people who asks Vasu to bring KK to them. Vasu’s attempt to get his wife back is what primarily the movie talking about.
The entire first half of the movie is absolutely dull. Apart from Vikram discretely showing his ability to carry any kind of look, there is actually nothing in the script to hook you up. You can clearly sense where things are going and nothing in terms of presentation is there to make you feel that the craft in making is refreshing. It is only in the second half there is some kind of life in this film. But that too gets ruined by pretentious and over-ambitious sequences. Rajesh M Selva’s way of adding chase sequences doesn’t have any sort of smoothness. There is nothing wrong in having a chase sequence in a thriller like this, but here if they simply edit out that entire set-piece, the movie won’t have any problem in moving on. Such is the way a lot of portions have been included in this film.
I am yet to see Point Blank, so this review won’t have any sort of comparisons. But when I compared the running time of both films, Kadaram Kondan has an excess of roughly more than half an hour. That somewhat explains the feeling one gets inside the theatre watching this movie. This film should have been crisper in the editing table. By the time Kadaram Kondan reaches the interval block (one hurdle foreign films don’t have to jump) most of the people in the audience were like, are you done with the build-up? A large chunk of the script doesn’t have any sense of tension attached to it and when finally something happens, we get to see the makers extending it to an excruciating level with pretentious elements. The shaky camera angles occasionally give an edgy vibe. But the editing just couldn’t give the movie the level of intrigue it demands. The music is fine on an album level and it’s a burden for the movie.
For someone like Vikram, this movie is a cakewalk. All he does in this film is walk with an attitude and trust me that was perhaps the only good thing about this largely monotonous script. Akshara Haasan was okay as the anxious Aatirah. Abi Hassan fumbles a lot in his first outing and luckily the zone of the character he plays helps him in covering up the flaws. Lena was fine as Kalpana and Vikas as Vincent was just about okay. The development of most of the characters is very superficial.
Even after being a thriller that has to do with saving someone’s life within a small span of time, Kadaram Kondan feels excessively bloated. The movie is either on the dull side or on the exhausting side. The lack of excitement at any point in the narrative makes this a forgettable attempt at creating an action suspense thriller.
The lack of excitement at any point in the narrative makes this a forgettable attempt at creating an action suspense thriller.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
