Rudhiram Review | An Exhausting Survival Thriller With Unsurprising Twists

In Rudhiram, director Jisho Lon Antony is trying to make it a combination of revenge and survival. You have one track that features a psycho killer who has the outlook of a nice guy, and then we have the track of the girl who is trying her best to get out of a place where she has been kept captive. The problem with the script is that the psycho-killer aspect of the movie is predictable and generic, and when it comes to the survival thriller element, the behavior of that character in tough situations is so weird that the audience laughs when she gets beaten up.

The review will have minor spoilers ahead. So, the movie basically revolves around two characters. A doctor named Mathew and a young girl named Swathy. Mathew is a very kind-hearted doctor who helps the needy by providing them with health care. In a different hospital, he is giving therapy sessions. But Mathew has a different side, and we see that he has kidnapped and kept Swathy in a secret room in his house. What is it that made the seemingly good Mathew take such an action against Swathy? This is what we explore in this movie.

The major issue with the film is the fact that it is not trying to narrate the story from a fresh perspective. When you watch every scene in the movie, you can practically guess what will happen next, and there wasn’t a single moment in the entire film where the prediction of the audience became wrong. The introductions of certain characters into the movie are done in such an obvious way. The most annoying part for me was the micro Shawshank redemption of the character Swathy. People who were sitting next to me were getting irritated seeing the stupid behavior of the character. Imagine you are escaping from a place, and you are running alone in a forest, and you know that people are coming after you with loaded guns. If your pet dog escapes, would you just scream his name out loud? Well, Swathy will, and thanks to that behavior, this excruciatingly stretched thriller got some moments of unintentional comedy.

Raj B Shetty, as Mathew, is shown as this man from Mangalore, and hence, the Malayalam diction never really becomes a problem. His face has this unique flexibility to be this genuine soft person and an extremely rough psycho, and the actor uses that facet in his acting extensively to enhance the performance. Aparna Balamurali, as Swathy, showcases the physical exhaustion of Swathy neatly. But the character design was so poor that despite her giving her best, it was really difficult to empathize with that character. Kumaradas TN, as Member Varghese, is becoming a bit funny when his character panics. Uma KP, Ramesh Varma, Anil Anto, etc., are some of the other major performers in the film.

Jisho Lon Antony, who has written the film, is hoping that he can make the survival story of Swathy intense and gripping on the screen. However, the writing somewhat underestimates the audience by thinking that too much violence can distract them. While the reasons for Mathew looked like the usual ones, Swathy’s reaction to this life-or-death situation was making things annoying for the viewer. The whole mouse angle looked half-baked. What was irritating was the kind of things Swathy did when she had the opportunity to escape. A psycho has captured you, and you are in a house in the middle of a jungle. And Swathy is looking for socks and shoes to make the journey comfortable. And in the morning, she has this smile on her face as if she is on an authorized jungle trek. Her pre-climax Hawk Eye transformation is something I don’t want to get into. The only thing that looked good was the fight sequence between Raj B Shetty and Anil Anto. Precise cuts and camera movements made that sequence really good on screen.

Rudhiram is a predictable and familiar story that could only make an impression if the script had a different approach and the struggles of the characters had an impact on the viewers. Unfortunately, both these necessary aspects were flawed for this film, and hence, it became an exhausting one that couldn’t be saved by the last-minute backstory twist.