Kuruthi review: "Engages but lacked the conviction that it deserved!!!"

Onam is just round the corner & with the theatres still not accessible to the public, it invariably means that big budget releases is still a distant dream. However, some directors will still seek to showcase their creations on the OTT platform & Manu Warrier’s “Kuruthi” happens to be one of them. The trailer promises it to be a thriller & is about the impact when faith and prejudice clashes on humanity & relationships.  After a rather lukewarm reception to Prithvi’s “Cold Case”, he would be hoping for a fruitful experience from Amazon this time around as his production house had bankrolled this project. 

Almost a year had passed since Ibrahim (Roshan Mathew) had lost his family to the fury of the floods. However, he still brooded over it & struggled to make peace with his loss, even as he took care of his grumpy father, Moosa (Mammukoya) & younger brother, Resul (Naslen) who on the other hand was getting impressionable with the religious conflicts that happened across the nation. Despite their internal turmoils, life moved along uneventfully until it was turned upside down when a police officer barged into their home with a convict. What subsequently unfolds is a tense standoff that would test the resolve of each of them to stick onto their principles. So which side of the scale would each one align to, will it be on the side of humanity or religious justice???

This is Manu Warrier’s debut venture in Malayalam, though he had donned the director’s cape for “Coffee Bloom” in Hindi. Anish Palliyal aided him in his task as the former had penned the script that tries to look at the impact that religious discord has at a microcosm level. Hence we are introduced to an array of characters whose character ranges from extreme to liberal and how each one tries to influence the other. Even as the core subject seems interesting, the manner in which it is fleshed out fails to capture the attention of the audience. It felt rather shallow with the focus just being on the frustrations of the public and the retaliations that occur to drill home the point “an eye for an eye”. However, as a home invasion thriller it keeps us entertained (an alternate version to the sequence in “Varathan”) with the highlight being the change in dynamics inside the house. For some weird reason, the expressions & body language of the extremists had a zombie feel to it. Kudos to the makers for their apt cast selection & also for the dialogues, especially the ones that were mouthed by Mammukoya, which was insightful yet humorous. On the technical side, it was pretty top notch with special mention for Abhinandhan Ramanujam’s cinematography that captures the mood of the movie perfectly, be it focusing on the expressions or the environment around them while Jakes Bejoy’s music was fine.

Despite not being perfectly written & kind of one dimensional, Prithvi has given a fine performance as the spiteful Laiq who deserves praise for taking up a role that is different & is almost second fiddle to Roshan in the overall scheme. Roshan has done justice to the part that he was entrusted with & seems to evolve into a fine actor with each passing movie. The biggest highlight was undoubtedly was Mammukoya who was fantastic as the irritating, blunt and hilarious Moosa. As for the rest of the cast, Srinda, Murali Gopi, Shine Tom, Manikandan. Sagar as Vishnu, Naslen as Rasool have all done their parts aptly.

Verdict: Did the movie deliver what it promised? As a thriller, there are undoubtedly some exciting sequences once the stage is set but in terms of the core subject which is about the conflicts of the religious binary, it certainly doesn’t break any new ground.  In short, it could have been way better!!!

Rating: 2.25/5

Regards...Ben