There was a time almost 10 years back when filmmakers used physical assault and crimes against women as an excuse to create gallery-pleasing customized instant justice thrillers. Some of them worked, while most of them were terribly written. Of late, that trend has witnessed some slowdown. But with his new movie Kakkipada, director Shebi Chowghat revisits the same zone, and this time it is POCSO. But with lousy writing that made even Sujith Shankar deliver a forgettable performance, Kakkipada is easily one of the trashiest films of 2022.
A group of police officers from the police camp are given this security duty for a location that witnessed the death of a minor. With the local people agitated against the guy who committed the crime, the situation was highly sensitive. How this group of policemen handled that situation and ensured justice was delivered to that young kid is what we see in Kakkipada.
The script of this movie is co-written by the producer along with the director, and the lack of research and the dependence on page 3 headlines is clearly evident in every line they have written. I find it extremely funny and sometimes very frustrating when I see senior police officers explaining duties to their juniors in movies. They are police officers, not NCC cadets attending their first-ever day in uniform. The superficial emotional explosion of almost every character in this movie will make you facepalm almost every two or three minutes. The way they have infused the newspaper-cutting level knowledge about police procedures just makes the film an excruciatingly painful experience.
The movie has impressive names like Sujith Shankar, Manikandan Achari, Appani Sarath, etc., in its cast list, and I must admit with a heavy heart that all these talented names performed really bad largely because of the shoddy writing of their characters. The consistent dullness in Sujith Shankar’s face was almost like he indirectly asking the audience, “how I ended up here?” Appani Sarath delivers a loud performance. Niranj Maniyanpilla Raju is trying to sound like a rebel, but his attempts fall flat. The actor who plays the role of the rapist and the actors who played his relatives were hilariously bad.
The script just uses the age-old theme of people’s frustration against the judicial system’s nature of delaying justice. But director Shebi Chowghat and producer cum writer Sheji Valiyakath have little interest in being imaginative in executing their script. From mentioning extra-judicial killing to including islamophobia and oppression against other state workers, they are desperately trying to tick all the boxes to be able to claim as a relevant film. I think they were very confident that Lijo Jose Pellissery won’t ever see this mess. Because they have tried to place this story in the Angamaly Diaries universe, and Sinoj Varghese is playing the same character. Weak character-building, predictable situations, and a very superficial gaze at the whole thing make this thriller a very lazy attempt at filmmaking.
Kakkipada is a movie that glorifies extra-judicial killing and simultaneously criticizes the use of third-degree. And the making is so sluggish that I don’t think this contradiction was ever a thing that the makers wanted to fix. Kakkipada can be suggested as a punishment for POCSO criminals, as their existence led to the creation of a movie like this.
Kakkipada can be suggested as a punishment for POCSO criminals, as their existence led to the creation of a movie like this.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
