Kazhuvethi Moorkkan Review - A Definitely Watchable Rural Drama

Ashwin Ram

Arulnithi is an angry young man, Santhosh Prathap is his best friend who is well educated. Caste politics plays a major role in their village, things get dark and Santhosh Prathap gets murdered.

Writing/ Direction: 

Started off like a regular commercial flick with a typical screenplay which will be there in a rural mainstream film. Cutting the ribbon with a fiery hero introduction scene, but it gets better in the progression by neatly establishing the characters, story and the conflict. However the happenings are familiar, it promises to be something different at the very beginning during the title by explaining the base of the livelihood. The romance scenes are a mix of some enjoyable cat and mouse segment with a few cringe moments. The film is never boring, even the fillers in the first half are passable. The story takes a serious path in the interval block, but without unveiling much of the real incident. The knots are untied slowly one by one in the later half, which actually helps the story to evolve till the end of the movie. But that is also a shortcoming as there is no impact when an important supporting character dies. The later half takes time to settle, it deviates a bit from the core conflict and travels on a difficult track. Thankfully things fall in place well and the flow becomes engaging to an extent. Writing is good at several places, the happenings are clear and believable. Many incomplete scenes too, some portions felt like additionally added bunch which are not really fitting the flow. Also, a brisk or a crackling moment is missing, which a rural flick will generally have. The climax especially is the biggest highlight as it conveys the caste politics subtly with a lot of sense. Nothing is overpowering or preachy, credits to the director for stressing on the intended topic.

Performances: 

Solid work by Arulnithi, measured and neat performance in the romance portions for the first time and powerful presence in the action sequences. Dushara Vijayan impresses yet again, a meaty role who has quite a bit of screen space in the first half. Santhosh Prathap is the driving factor of the story, he takes the forward, decent act but they could have gone for someone more rooted. Munishkanth taps the fun element, he gets a mass scene too, but he could have been more calmer on screen and his portions could have been crisper.

Technicalities:

Quality work by D.Imman in terms of music, songs and the background score suits the mood well. Impactful cinematography, by setting camera angles perfectly for certain crucial scenes, also the heroic slow-motion shots are superb. Some thoughtful cuts in the edit table, however the overall runtime could have definitely been crisper by chopping off the lags in both the halves. Stunt sequences are at times over-the-top, yet provide the much needed punch.

Bottomline

Crisper narration and a neater flow could have helped the engagement better, yet a decent flick that finds a balance between the commercial formula and the intended caste politics plot, presented as a convincing package.

Rating - 2.75/ 5