Kavaludaari movie

Watched Kavaludaari last Saturday. It wasn't as good as GBSM and it wasn't what I expected it to be. It Still was intriguing and pretty darn good. Good as in slowly sinking into the world of a novel or sitting back and digging into a Slow burning TV series.

Regarding the genre: The interesting thing is that it is not structured like a typical suspense thriller. A suspense thriller would make every attempt to milk the suspense about what next and who the killer is going to be.

Every scene would try to build and increase the tension, it would also have 4-5 possible suspects and would place red herrings and all.
Peak point of the suspense thriller is when the killer's name and method are revealed. This movie isn't structured like that. That is probably why Hemanth called it as police drama instead of suspense thriller.

Tamil movie Ratsasan is an example of a traditionally structured suspense movie. I don't mean to suggest that one is superior to the other, just that one sticks to the rules of game and the other not so much.

Since the culprits are revealed half an hour before the end, it just goes on and on while we wait for the predictable finish (or shall we call it the commercial ending, an ending where the bad guy loses and the good prevails). Hence not sticking to the rules of the suspense genre. That's deliberately done I think.

I was a little disappointed with the way Ananth Nag's character was written. Clichéd, formulaic. He delivers a classy performance alright, but wasn't his potential wasted? Couldn't his character have been more complex, nuanced and therefore more fascinating? Writing didn't take him to the level he is capable of going. It was like hiring Elon musk to run TCS. He will do good there but he is meant to do something greater.

Some things that were wow for me: That scene where Achyuth scolds that MLA candidate at night, only in climax do we get to know what actually was going on. And that scene when the goons approach Ananth's house and he keeps that cop aagidda photo - superb build up without even uttering a word of build up. Khaki dialogue and the climactic Holi scene worked well by the way.

A film worth watching.