Kaali movie review: The real tragedy of Vijay Antony’s film

Kaali
Cast: Vijay Antony, Sunainaa, Anjali
Direction: Kiruthuga Udhayanidhi
Rating: 1.5/5
Vijay Antony’s Bharath leads a perfect life -- a successful thoracic surgeon in America, he owns a multi-specialty hospital and has a loving family. There is one wrinkle though -- a nightmare that haunts him incessantly. He sees a bull charging at a boy as the child’s mother yells at him to run. Before he can find out what happens next, he wakes up. His parents are worried about this and we see them discussing it too.

The nightmare is explained soon enough when Bharath discovers he is adopted and the truth behind his nightmare lies not in America, but in India. To search for his biological parents, he travels to India – a premise interesting enough to keep you interested for the length of the film, right?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. The film is failed by execution and plot holes. For example, what is a thoracic surgeon doing in a kidney transplant surgery? Bharath is not only allowed in the operation room, but he takes part in the surgery too.

His attempts to find his parents also border on ridiculous. When he realizes his mother is no more, he attempts to find his father by setting up a hospital in his mother’s native village. Now going by the name Kaali, he starts performing DNA tests on the male patients who come to his hospital.

And then there are the elaborate flashbacks – served one after another to keep the suspense alive. The one-dimensional performances also do nothing to help the film. Even the director fails to go deep when it comes to exploring relationships in the film -- be it Mari’s tragic story (played by Vijay and Nasser) or Kaali’s relationship with the local medic, Valli (Anjali).

Every time Kaali’s suspicion is cleared, there is expectation that he might finally meet his father and learn what happened in his past. How frustrated and anxious must one be when he is faced with this situation? Vijay, however, believes his trademark lost look takes care of the entire film.

Kaali eventually finds the truth about his mother but we are past caring by that point. We do breathe a sigh of relief though as credits roll for we don’t have to deal with another tragic story. And there, perhaps, lies the true tragedy of Kaali.

Author tweets @Priyanka_S_MCC
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