In the movie Kee, Govind Padmasurya plays the role of a venomous hacker who hacks details from everyone’s phones and laptops and makes life hell for them. And he is presented as this enormous figure, even the villains we saw in Die Hard franchise or James Bond for that matter would get scared. And the funny part is his colleague/subordinate in one scene sort of explains to him what IP phishing is. Now that’s lame. It’s like telling Sachin Tendulkar at the peak of his career about how run out works in Cricket. Kee is the amalgamation of such “what the hell” moments.
Siddharth is our hero and he is like a pro in hacking other people’s digital devices. We are introduced to our hero by showing his ability to woo girls by telling them that he even knows the price of the bra they are wearing. And in a parallel story, we have a hacker who hacks people’s phones and uses them to do something like the Blue Whale game. At one point the paths of these two masterminds cross and we are shown how Siddharth eventually takes down the untraceable hacker.
Editing table is one place where cinema can get a new shape. If any institutions that are providing courses in film editing want to check the ability of the student to understand what to keep and what to discard, Kee is the perfect movie for that test. There are numerous sequences in the film that can be chopped easily and it wouldn’t affect the continuity of the film. Seeing some of the sequences I thought director Kalees randomly created scenes with whichever actor’s dates where available. And the peak of the irony was director criticizing the virginity seeking mentality of the men after portraying some of the female characters as a mere object of desire. Remember that meme of Jackie Chan scratching his head? I was in that mode throughout.
Jiiva is simply repeating one more character that looks familiar to the other spoilt brat like characters he has done in the past. Govind Padmasurya as the villain has only one creepy smile to his credit and for Malayali audience, the dubbing might sound a bit weird as it had no resemblance with his original sound. Anaika Soti is largely there for glamour. RJ Balaji is supposed to be the comic relief but the pointless inclusion of his character just doesn’t work. Nikki Galrani was trying really hard to be Hansika and she was really good at being that bad. The market widener Rajendra Prasad will remind us of the MGR era with his acting. And I don’t really know what made Suhasini commit to this project.
Kalees’ idea of this movie is actually suited for one category of people; the ones who don’t use smartphones or anything that is connected to the internet. His visual representation of hacking and all the other problems involved in it is bizarre. If any hacker sees this film, he might wish thinks were as cool as that in real life. Jiiva’s room in the movie is full of led light strips and it looked more like the reception of a hotel rather than that of a womanizer hacker. I think Kalees knew that the idea was bizarre and cleverly titled the virus as Baasha so that he can show the Thalaivar on the screen to make the audience forgive his ridiculous writing. When the script is so trashy there is very little a cinematographer like Abhinandan Ramanujam can provide to make it look better. Songs aren’t that great too.
At the end of Kee, director Kalees is hinting at the possibility of a sequel to this movie with a new villain. Veteran Malayalam actor, screenwriter Sreenivasan once said his biggest contribution to Malayalam cinema is the movies he decided not to make. Kalees should think about making Kee 2 his first real contribution to Tamil cinema.
Rating: 1/5
Kalees’ idea of this movie is actually suited for one category of people; the ones who don’t use smartphones or anything that is connected to the internet.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
