Valathu Vashathe Kallan Review: Biju Menon, Joju George Are Solid In Underwhelming Thriller

Jeethu Joseph's Valathu Vashathe Kallan works better as an emotional drama than an intriguing thriller, notes Arjun Menon.

The Jeethu Joseph factor in Valathu Vashathe Kallan

Jeethu Joseph has positioned himself as one of the few filmmakers currently working in Malayalam cinema, whose name being attached to a film is seen as a mark of quality.

An indefinitely curious chooser of far reaching and diverse subject matter, Jeethu Joseph films are defined by their ability to garner extreme reactions. When firing ok all cylinders, the Drishyam fame filmmaker rarely misses a beat and comes up with making the most simplest ideas into great works of tension and suspense building.

Valathu Vashathe Kallan is a film that sees him getting back to form after the abysmal narrative Mirage, which released last year.

What Valathu Vashathe Kallan is about

Set in and around a police station, featuring the battle for moral supremacy between two men, Valathu Vashathe Kallan is a welcome departure for the director in terms of scale and scope of its characters. It thrives on the conviction of its performers.

A rare real time thriller from Jeethu Joseph, usually known for rousing, over-wrought moral dilemmas about loner protagonists operating in a world where their past selves are in direct conflict with their shattered present, like in his more popular movies like Memories, the Drishyam franchise, Kooman and Neru.

Valathu Vashathe Kallan is more sparse in its setting and uses the silences and anticipation of the economical writing to tell a satisfactory tale as old as time.

Joju George plays a disgruntled man who is forced against the wall by an unsympathetic system and has come to question his existing reality in the most unexpected of ways.

Missing girl mysteries are interesting genre vessels for filmmakers to place their stories of layered, multi-character focused dramas about the unjust ways of our policing system and the way the society responds to a genius act. The plot hinges on its secretive build-up, hence sparing the spoilers here.

Valathu Vashathe Kallan drives home an engaging character drama about a father pushed to the limits of his civil ways, as the unforgiving system tries to trample his search for a sense of grace.

The interesting central performances in Valathu Vashathe Kallan

As Joju plays the avenging angel, the system is personified through a dicey cop Anthony Xavier (Biju Menon), who finds himself face-to-face with the immovable force of nature, on a gloomy night. Both Biju Menon and Joju are in form here and perfectly complement each other.

Valathu Vashathe Kallan is almost structured like a two-actor play and these seasoned actors use their imposing physicality and presence to stand in for a squirmy sense of high stakes drama that unfolds mostly within a police station.

Joju George is wonderfully restrained as the towering father, whose ability for vengeance precedes him. The actor uses his body mass in a way that calls attention to the way his unpredictable actions and character traits are slowly released for audiences.

Biju Menon gets a more challenging part that constantly keeps you on your toes. He is a thinly veiled, shallow shell of man, whose character motivations acquire more meaning as you watch him crack under the pressure of the deadly night.

The screenplay doesn't serve the supporting cast well, as it seems too sure of its two central characters. Lena gets a one-note grieving parent archetype that she harnesses for some good moments on screen.

Does Valathu Vashathe Kallan deliver on its initial promise?

Everything in Valathu Vashathe Kallan is like an incidental detail to prop up an exciting one line. The setting, thriller-like plot machinations and slow, brooding drama is all there, but the heavy-handed writing and equally overwrought filmmaking lets down the film, especially in the latter half.

The goodwill established by the initial setup is drowned out by incessant over writing that is too pleased with its own sense of importance. Jeethu Joseph shoots the movie with a detached ambivalence, a major part of many of his recent films, where the line deliveries and character interactions feel staged almost to a fault.

There is a flat, theatrical veneer in the presentation that sucks the engagement out after a point. Everything is spelled out and nothing is left to marinate and be interesting story ideas on their own. Satheesh Kurup captures the dreaded curse of the faithful night with dark interior scenes.

Vishnu Shyam's orchestral, larger-than-life score lends some life to the film, wherever the writing nosedives into predictable beats. There are few surprises packed in the crucial scenes in Valathu Vashathe Kallan and it's undoubtedly Jeethu Joseph's most accomplished work as an image-maker since the Agatha Christie-esque 12th Man that came out a few years ago. But Valathu Vashathe Kallan feels like a lesser, overwritten emotional drama that quite does not work as the invigorating thriller that it aspired to become at the end of the day.