Gatham - A surprisingly neat thriller that works within its limitations!

Bharath Vijayakumar

Gatham starts with a message about being safe by maintaining a certain distance from psychopaths. These words appear in white on the screen and then comes the warning in red - 'Unless they coming knocking on your door'. A young couple get stranded on a deserted highway as their car breaks down. A stranger offers them help and invites them home. Is he the psychopath that the initial message was talking about?

Gatham has the usual limitations associated with an indie movie. The actors are new and there are bound to be rough edges. But the good thing about Gatham is that all these rough edges are within a certain acceptable level and nothing that would really put you off. It also actually helps in a sense that you know nothing about these actors. It adds to the eeriness! The very few English actors actually do a decent job. Close on the heels of Nishabdham and Miss India, the performance of these English actors looks like they deserve an Oscar.

It is tough to discuss about the plot without giving away spoilers but a crucial plot point is strikingly similar to the Korean thriller Forgotten (2017). But the similarity ends here.

No deviations and a crisp runtime help in overcoming the issues the film has. For a film that has an emotional father-daughter angle at its centre, the emotional connect is rather limited. But for a thriller this doesn't hinder much as the twists keep coming and has us interested despite few glaring logical questions. While most of the amateurishness is acceptable, the taxi driver who actually comes to help the hero on his own accord and then ends up taking orders from him like a henchman provides unintended laughter.

Bottomline:

Gatham is an engaging watch. Sufficient twists keep this thriller up and running.

Rating: 3/5

P.S. Streaming on Amazon Prime Video