Director: Andrew Louis
Cast: Vijay Antony, Arjun, Ashima Narwal
What strikes you immediately about ‘Kolaigaran’ is the film’s title itself. It refers to a male perpetrator of murder, whereas the two main suspects of the gory killing that forms the crux of the film are in fact..women!
Well, this is what investigating police officer Karthikeyan (a terrific, but subdued ‘Action King’ Arjun) believes, at least. What complicates it? The fact that another man, Prabhakaran (Vijay Antony) surrenders for the crime right under his nose! The murder in question is that of Vamshi, a man accused of stalking and mental torture by Dharani (Ashima Narwal, who rocks in this debut performance). Dharani is also Prabhakaran’s neighbour, and it is her, along with her mother that Karthikeyan suspects. His suspicion is definitely counter intuitive though. All clues and deductions seem to only point at Prabhakaran. In fact, everything seems to come together too easily..almost too good to be true for someone of Karthikeyan’s sagacity to buy! To be fair, the script keeps us, the audience, on tenterhooks. The director gives nothing away. Everyone has a theory and every theory seems to assure an alibi for either of the suspects, supported by strong reconstructive proof. Simon K King with his brilliant score and Richard Kevin with some slick, astute editing compliment the director brilliantly in keeping this tension up. In between all this, there is also a stunning revelation about Prabhakaran’s past, one which we didn’t quite see coming! Vijay Antony seems to be the perfect pick for the role. I can’t think of another actor who could have pulled off this stone-faced demeanour to all of Karthikeyan’s probing and scrutiny, though this back fires a bit when Prabhakaran is expected to emote a little too during a sequence at the fag end of the film!
The writing is great for most parts. There’s this scene where everyone wonders why a certain reputed policeman’s record seems mediocre at best, if you only look at the numbers. However, there is a cool explanation to this and I loved it! What was a bit of a let-down for me though, was the denouement. Prabhakaran’s motives seem to be born out of a back story, which I found played out a little too conveniently. Those scenes are rushed and you do think more time could have been spent to create a stronger back bone. There were also some logical questions I had about the crimes itself, especially how the corpses get disposed off, but I’ll leave that to you to judge so that I don’t end up revealing too many spoilers! Ultimately, in spite of all this, the director does succeed in creating a great feel and mood about the film, something that is a pre-requisite to make a thriller work. No amount of ‘forensic reviewing’ can convey this aspect well enough and you do have to credit the makers for this!
Overall rating: 3/5
