Kattalan Movie Review: The flashbacks were desaturated, and repeated throughout the fight scenes, giving the viewer much more information about Kattalan than the script provided. Every few minutes the film stops, to remind us why Antony Varghese Pepe is angry – almost as if the film knows that the rage is never quite captured without a reminder. That is the film’s worst flaw – one creative choice! Kattalan wants to feel like so big, so emotional, so mythic, but is more like an assortment of mass cinema ingredients with little heart to keep them together.
There is no denying Pepe’s screen presence, particularly when he’s on the floor on action sequences as his body does most of the work there, while Ravi Basrur’s score will always be looking for the adrenaline rush to be thrust into the theatre. When the emotional pulse under the cartoons of the smart-looking heroes is uneniacable, but the music is loud and the smugglers and ivory cartels are real, it is hard to take a film beyond a certain point.
From the first moments of the movie, the film is attempting to establish a mythological scale in Pepe’s character. I had some of the beginning parts, particularly the AI-generated title setting, grabbing me, and I’m not sure that’s the word I used for it. The visuals were very cool, the expressions were very intense and the presentation was like a big commercial entertainer. At the moment I thought I might be about to see something special. As the story began to take shape, though, the thrill slowly ebbed.
It was a strange, déjà vu feeling throughout the scenes. I repeatedly witnessed echoes of KGF, glimpses of Salaar, and fragments of other recent action flicks all butched together. The problem with being inspired isn’t that it’s the only thing that works, as commercial cinema has always been good at working with the same moulds. The issue is Kattalan borrows the surface and doesn’t know the soul behind those films.
The film explores the activities of ivory traffickers, narcotics, drug trafficking gangs, high-ranking dons and one hero who enters this vicious environment to become a “Toofan”. My favourite metaphor in the film was a film metaphor and weave its way into the film. This film has acted as if it was killing elephants for the tusk while the rest of the animal remained untouched, just like the ivory traders do. All the key elements are here: Ravi Basrur’s thunderous score, the dark cartel atmosphere, larger than life villains, moments of elevation for the hero. However, there’s no emotional spine, there’s no pulse, and there’s no dramatic weight that makes these inspirations become the reality.
Antony Varghese Pepe still has some interest in him as it is natural to carry intensity in his body language. Ever since RDX, I’ve liked his in-action movement style. His simple punches even seem to have an impact. Again his climbing motions and rope skills seem believable as do his physical abilities. There is another noticeable attempt to dress him up in a different way, particularly by his eyes and facial expressions. The film, however, never affords him any satisfying moments to enhance those physical abilities, in turn. The fight scenes aren’t terrible, but they are nothing special. There was some sparks only in the climax fight sequence. The cut was now more energetic, the setup began to be more colourful and, for a few minutes, the film actually seemed alive. Sadly, there are two hours of emotional void between two levels of excitement.
In the film’s publicity, Jagadish is given much significance, but his role is underwritten in this film. He plays his role sincerely and particularly for the child actor Vedika Sreekumar, but the dialogues do not work out well with those scenes. As soon as the child character came into the story, I knew just how he was going to feel. There are no surprises or depth to every development. The movie desperately tries to elicit sympathy from us, but never establishes a true connection between the hero and those he is supposedly defending.
It’s this lack of emotional connection that is the weakest link in the movie. With KGF, the miners themselves consider Rocky Bhai to be their saviour. We know why thousands are following him. I didn’t get the sense of how people in Kattalan were emotionally relying on Pepe’s character. Anger and revenge are displayed throughout the screenplay, but are not always felt in terms of pain. Even in the fighting scenes of the movie, it has a couple of flashback scenes that are desaturated, warning the viewers that the hero is angry for a reason. It doesn’t naturally build emotion through story building like it does in nature, but it mechanically puts in some faded visuals when editing. The outcome is stilted and somewhat insubstantial.
Ravi Basrur’s music needs to be appreciated at a technical level, due to the strength of the compositions themselves. However, the background music is usually more audible than the story would warrant. There are loud music noises at times that don’t mean much. A hero elevation score can only be effective if the audience can feel the hero’s rage/triumph within themselves. Here, the music is in an effort to create excitement that the screenplay never does.
I was also disappointed with the parts with AI and VFX. Burning images and footage were artificial and unfinished, particularly. Interestingly, many Instagram creators are now making images through AI that are more realistic and compelling. Theatrical releases that invest a lot into these methods, but provide less convincing imagery than what is seen in social media are bound to be noticed.
Even the dialogues have failed to make an impact. In numerous moments, Pepe tries to deliver a mass dialogue, but the punch doesn’t land. Oddly enough, in one of the post credit sequences, his voice and intonation suddenly sound like it matters and I’m left wondering who dubbed it, since it’s so dynamic. But at that snap there was energy. It did not film the majority of the film up to that point. There are also some dialogues which are obviously meant to be applauded at specific moments, between Antony’s Unniyal and others, but the theatre around me was quite silent.
Yet I didn’t feel bored at all. Its brief length is a plus for the film. There is always something going on, and it is not laggy. Dons come and go, smugglers pursue ivory, action ensues, betrayals are committed, kids get involved for emotional manipulation, and things continue to move forward. However, engagement doesn’t happen by itself just because you’re moving. I left the theatre thinking I’d seen a shortened version of many of the better films that hadn’t given me the emotional jolt those films gave.
Kattalan for me is a limbo of sorts. While it’s not bad enough for viewers to walk away, it never reaches the exciting level it always strives for. Antony Varghese Pepe brings the film some flesh on the bones and it has presence, Ravi Basrur brings the scale through the music and the climax brings some energy but all this is undercut by a lack of an emotional core. Now this just didn’t feel like a strong independent film, but more like pieces of great mass entertainment that were glued together without any soul in between.
Rating: 2.5/5
