Police dramas made well are very watchable - the straight talking, straight shooting, no nonsense types such as those in the Dirty Harry or Singham series taking on the bad guys and getting rid of them with whatever it takes.
And then, we have Babita Singh Reporting. In that Hindi movie released on Amazon Prime in late August this year, people pleaser cop Babita gets taken advantage of by just about everyone, especially her senior colleague and in-laws, but that doesn’t steer her away from thoroughly investigating the mysterious death of her childhood friend. She is vindicated and all come good at the end, of course.
Now we have another film not sticking to the traditional formula.
Malayalam movie Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakar (Prima Facie Guilty), which was released in cinemas on Sept 11 and currently showing on Netflix, shows shades of that in terms of cops battling emotions and not only one single cop. While similar in some ways to Babita, it is also different.
Rather, Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakar is more like the original Drishyam featuring Mohanlal released in 2013 to critical acclaim. But instead of the main character masterfully covering up a murder from the police, here we have the cops covering up an accidental killing.
The murder victim is a criminal (a story by itself uncovered through flashbacks), which introduces the audience to the antagonist - the very sharp crime branch officer Haris Meeran who starts off investigating a missing criminal but ends up investigating the police officers.
The movie picks up pace once the police encounter the criminal at a road check and even more when Haris Meeran meets the police officers. The plot then moves to centre around how the four rather unassuming cops try to cover up and then lock horns in a battle of wits with the persistent internal investigator.
Lead character and protagonist, single mother Aleena gets the policewoman’s job on compassionate grounds after her husband is killed and bonds with three other lower rung officers who will also be involved in the cover up.
Parvathy Thiruvothu in the lead role of Aleena is a study of calm under pressure and despite being a rookie cop, expertly stays on top of the internal investigator who unknowingly helps her in an indirect way (figure that out). Her three colleagues played by Unnimaya Prasad, Sidharth Bharathan, and Mathew Thomas are able to extract sympathy from the audience as they juggle their personal issues while working together to conceal their crime.
Internal investigator Haris Meeran is played compellingly by Malaysia-born Vijayaraghavan, with his method and efficiency leading the watcher to think that the crime will be cracked at any moment.
R Parthiban gives a good account of himself as an army officer in a rather short role but given his talent and strong screen presence, could have been given something more meaty to tackle.
Azees Nedumangad as a senior colleague has a meatier role, and keeps the audience well irritated by frequently coming close to undoing the gang of four cops’ coverup.
Early on, the movie does risk losing the viewer by moving a bit too slowly with two separate plots until the officers run into the victim at a road spot check, but it’s worthwhile to keep the television running.
It’s not a thriller in the classic sense where the mystery of who the killer is or what the crime was is kept under wraps to leave viewers in tenterhooks until the end.
The movie thread is not as taut and the audience knows the crime. Rather, the pull is how cops who usually uncover crime do their best to cover up their crime. Director Shahad Nilambur has intricately woven emotions into police life, bringing us to their lives behind the uniforms. Despite their crime, the audience will wish that the killer cops go free.
Did Aleena do enough to escape, or avoid justice as Haris Meeran might say. Perhaps, like Drishyam, it hasn’t been settled yet and a sequel is needed.
I’m not saying anymore. Catch the movie on Netflix. And for non-Malayalis, subtitles are available in English.
