Identity Review - Watchable Flick That Loses Steam Post Midway!
Ashwin Ram
Premise: Tovino Thomas gets appointed as the private sketch artist for a high-witness of a murder case. The features Trisha describes lead to Tovino Thomas’ face, what happens afterwards forms the remaining story.
Writing/ Direction: The content being well-researched is the first impression, the amount of detailing presented for various plot topics help in the engagement. The first half stays focused on the subject and the characters introduced, every scene has an interesting element that better the game. The play around facial sketching and Trisha’s medical condition is blent solidly. The twists in the opening hour work because of the coherent flow and the drama in the story. Tight and engrossing are the terms to describe the film till the interval, until the haywire second half shows up. The latter goes unnecessarily overboard at most times, except the slick car chase and a short point-of-view flashback. The story broadens and travels randomly by establishing new characters and purposes in the last couple of reels. The core is about rape, while things are kept simple till a point, they are pointlessly complicated towards the end. Also, overstuffing becomes the major issue, the attempt in bringing the excessive pieces of writing lands in great confusion of what is really going on. Stretched beyond limits by enforcing clueless twists just for the sake of it. Particularly, the two full-blown plane sequences definitely need to be trimmed.
Performances: Tovino Thomas looks razor-sharp and he is easily gotten into the thick of his character. Trisha keeps it composed, her characterization does the trick as it is designed with unique layers. Vinay does well when he is subtle, but the eccentric behaviour of his in the later half is quite bothersome. Dummy role for Mandira Bedi, it feels she has been roped in just for the face value.
Technicalities: Just a couple of montage songs, and they are decent. Powerful background score, Jakes Bejoy displays a great clarity for music by implementing a treatment that works big time for the film. The visual quality of the film is top-notch, the grand stretches are effective and at the same time the grounded scenes are made well too. Some neat shot transitions at the edit table, but there is plenty of scope to fine-tune the second half as it drags to a huge extent. Stylish action sequences, packs a punch by getting the cinematic appeal right.
Bottomline
A crisp and engrossing first hour that has many peculiar moments to offer is spoiled by an over-ambitious later half. Tries to throw an exorbitant amount of content at us, which results in bafflement.
Rating - 2.75/ 5