Review – Kalari

Film: Kalari

Director: Kiran Chand

Cast: Krishna, Vidya Pradeep, Samyuktha, Vishnu, M S Bhaskar, Jayaprakash, Black Pandi and others

Music: VV Prassanna

Cinematography: R B Gurudev

Director Kiran Chand’s Kalari is an emotional revenge drama that is refreshing in parts and interesting on the whole.

Murugesan (Krishna) is a good hearted but shy and timid grocery shop owner whose world revolves around his mother Kanaga (Meera Krishnan) and sister, Thenmozhi(Samyuktha).

Murugesan’s biggest worry is that he needs to find a good match for his sister and get her married off into a respectable family. All he wishes for his sister is a good, comfortable and happy life.

Stopping him from finding his sister a good life is none other than his own dad, Maari (M S Bhaskar), an alcoholic with an inflated ego and a vicious and selfish nature.

Maari’s problem is that nobody in his family respects him. Annoyed by this, he deliberately keeps thwarting all efforts that Murugesan makes to get his sister married.

While there is a struggle that is going on between the family members over her wedding, Thenmozhi, unaffected by any of this, is happily in love with a cab driver called Anwar (Vishnu).

What Thenmozhi does not know about Anwar is that he is also a part time pimp, who secretly has plans of selling her off to a brothel owner.

Apart from all these characters, there is one other character of significance. And that character is that of Siddique, better known as Bhai (Jeyaprakash). A man with political and police clout, Bhai has a good name in the village and is widely respected. He has an adopted son, who, he picked up from an orphanage. Bhai has a soft corner for Murugesan as he knows how hard the grocery shop owner works to make ends meet and how sincere he is in trying to find a suitable match for his sister. He is also aware of the problem posed by Murugesan’s drunkard dad.

With every prospective alliance being ruined by Maari, Murugesan’s mother, who is aware that her daughter is in love with a creepy cab driver, suggests that they marry Thenmozhi off to Bhai’s son.

Thenmozhi accepts the decision of her brother to get her married to Bhai’s son, after Anwar, who arrives at her home asking her parents for her hand in marriage, ends up slapping her brother.

The wedding happens and things are peaceful for a while. However, three months later, on a fine day, Murugesh’s life turns upside down when he sees his sister going out in secret with Anwar…

First things first. Kalari is engaging right from the word go and it manages to retain your attention right till the last scene ends.

The film touches upon several important issues that are relevant to this day and age, including the practice of young couples clicking pictures on mobiles.

More importantly, Kalari drives home the fact that no matter how timid a man is, there is a point in time when he turns courageous, even if only for a moment.

The film has good performances coming in from Krishna, who plays Murugesan, Samyuktha, M S Bhaskar, Jeyaprakash, Black Pandi who plays Murugesan’s friend Bhaski and Vidya Pradeep, who plays Mallika, the girl who is in love with Murugesan.

Music by V V Prassanna and cinematography by R B Gurudev are reasonably good.

On the whole, this is a film that is worth watching once.