Review – Kaali

Review: Kaali
Director: Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi
Cast: Vijay Antony, Anjali, Amritha Aiyar, Sunaina, Shilpa Manjunath, Yogi Babu, Nasser, Jeya Prakash and others
Music:Vijay Antony,
Camera: Richard M Nathan

Vijay Antony’s Kaali, which has been directed by Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi, is a neat entertainer, that is reasonably entertaining.

The film tells the story of a doctor Kali (Vijay Antony), who goes in search of his past. Kali has everything a man can want. He is a reputed doctor with a flourishing practice in a foreign country. Life is smooth till the point he begins to start having nightmares. There is just one nightmare that keeps coming up again and again. In it, Kaali sees an infant being threatened by a raging bull. The nightmare disturbs him and he begins to wonder why it keeps recurring. He is also concerned about what it means.

It is at this time, that his mother falls ill and requires a kidney transplantation. Kaali offers to donate one of his kidneys to his mother. However, his dad discloses that Kaali will not be able to do that as he is not their biological son. Kaali’s dad breaks the terrible news that they adopted him from an orphanage in India.

The information makes Kaali determined to find out about his real parents. He chooses to return to India to search for his parents. The search leads him to a village where he chooses to set up practice and continue his search. It is here that he becomes good friends with Gopi(Yogi Babu), a localite who looks to help the doctor in his search for his father.

Kali and his friend Gopi begin to identify potential individuals in the village who seem to have traits or characteristics that resemble his own traits in the hope that one of them may be his father. The duo identify two such individuals and eventually make an attempt to know about their past. Each tells how love has changed their lives forever. However, he also gets to know that they are not his father. Kali begins to wonder if he will ever manage to find his father. Will he?

The film’s biggest strength is its comedy track that is solely managed by Yogi Babu. The comedian, almost effortlessly, makes a pretty long film enjoyable with his punches, retorts and swift one-liners. Every single joke that he cracks works. Thankfully, Kiruthiga seems to have given him a meaty part in the film and that works to the film’s advantage big time.

The next big positive factor working in favour of the film is Vijay Antony. One reason the actor has been so successful is because of his simple, down-to-earth attitude which he sports in his films. Unlike most other heroes, who want to showcase themselves as superhumans, Vijay Antony has always played characters that depict him as an ordinary, soft-spoken simple individual, who is like any other common man. In this film too, his character, Kali, has been fashioned along those lines. A rich doctor who is down to earth and that works. What does not work, however, are certain portions where Vijay Antony looks to depart from this pattern. For instance, there is a duet song in which he seems to have done what other commercial heroes do. The same can be said of a fight sequence. This particular portion is unlikely to find favour in the eyes of the actor’s fans, who like him for his simplicity.

This apart, the film has good performances coming in from all its leading ladies — four of them in all. Shilpa Manjunath, who plays the wife of Vela Ramamurthy in the film, probably outscores the other three heroines. The next best performance comes from Sunaina, who plays the character of Poo Mayil (Vijay Antony’s mother in the film). It is a small character but she handles it well as always. The third best performance comes from Anjali who plays Valli, who is also the heroine of the film. Amritha Aiyar too does justice to her role. Nasser and Jeya Prakash play their parts to perfection.

Coming to what doesn’t work in the film, the film has three flashbacks that are narrated to the audience. The problem with these flashbacks is that all three have Vijay Antony playing the lead part and that some what takes away the story’s authenticity. For instance, in the film, Madhusudhan Rao plays one of the characters narrating his story to Kaali and Gopi. However, as soon as he begins narrating his flashback, Gopi is shown trying to visualise the sequence of events and in the process, imagines Madhusudhan Rao as a college student. The moment he imagines him as a college student, he says, “It is unbearable to imagine this guy as a college student. So, let’s try imagining Kaali as this character instead.” From there, the story is narrated with Vijay Antony playing Madhusudhan Rao’s younger days character. This way, Vijay Antony is shown playing the lead character of all three flashbacks. This might not work with some audiences as it eventually becomes an overdose of Vijay Antony.

The film has a very slow start but it picks up pace along the way and manages to stay interesting, right till the end. Credit for this goes to Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi, who seems to have done quite a neat job in her second film.

The film has good music. Vijay Antony himself has scored the music for the film and he seems to have done a decent job of it as well. However, unlike his earlier films, in which he was able to deliver superhits, Vijay Antony has not been able to deliver any songs that stand out in this one.

In all, Kaali is a decent entertainer. It might not be the kind to make it to the list of 10 best films this year but it certainly is paisa vasool.