Innale Vare Movie Review: After making three feel-good movies on trot, director Jis Joy changes paths for a change and has now made a dark thriller in Innale Vare. Instead of likeable protagonists, Innale Vare has three very flawed leads, and quite a lot of cuss words thrown in, be it in Malayalam or English. Innale Vare is also Asif Ali's first film to go the direct OTT path, and considering the salty language used by certain characters, it ain't a family entertainer. Just desperate individuals trying to up each other in a game of who is more desperate. OTT Releases of the Week: Cillian Murphy’s Peaky Blinders Season 6 on Netflix, Iman Vellani’s Ms Marvel on Disney+ Hotstar, Asif Ali's Innale Vare on SonyLIV and More.

Aadhi (Asif Ali) is a Malayalam superstar who is quite a hot-headed and arrogant, while also a philanderer. He insults a businessman for bringing a toilet cleaner ad for him to star in.  He refuses to complete the dubbing work for a film that has been in the cans for years, despite the producer's pitiful pleas.

Aadhi is cheating on his girlfriend (Reba Monica John) with a married actress (Athulya Chandra), while also flirting with other women on social media. But despite his high attitude, Aadhi is not doing good on career front, with his home production tanking with the audience and the actor now heavily in debt on a tune of Rs 3 crore. While Aadhi is trying to sort all his mess - well, mostly his hassled manager (Rony David Samuel) is doing that - the superstar gets kidnapped by a couple (Nimisha Sajayan and Anthony Varghese) with ulterior motives.

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Innale Vare, scripted by the fames Sanjay-Bobby duo, isn't as exemplary as the very underrated Bicycle Thieves, also starring Asif Ali, which was Jis Joy's debut directorial. But it is, for most of its parts, effectively gripping and suspenseful till a weak plot twist in the last act kinda spoils the fun. I liked the character deconstruction of Aadhi both pre and post his kidnapping. The pre-kidnapped Aadhi reminded me of Fahadh's character in Chappa Kurishu - an arrogant young man, drunk on the attention he gets, and oscillating between two women in his life, before a certain incident pushes him in a desperate corner of self-preservation. While the slow first act does a decent job of establishing Aadhi's character, it is the post-kidnapping portions which makes Innale Vare better.

Caught in a Trapped-like situation that is deliberately engineered, Aadhi's attempts to escape his confinement, and Shani-Sharath's attempts to use his voice clips to trick the people close to Aadhi to hide the kidnapping and earn money in the process are quite engaging. Now, there is some disbelief that has to be used when looking at scenes where Sharath tries to fool Aadhi's lovers, his manager and even his mother using his old voice clips. The idea gets a twist of irony later on in the film, when the real intentions of the kidnappers to confine Aadhi gets revealed. But that raises another problem, altogether. Asif Ali Birthday Special: 10 Best Roles of the Malayalam Youth Star That We Can’t Stop Admiring!

Otherwise, these portions make Innale Vare quite the watchable thriller. A couple of sequences stand out, like a frantic fight sequence between Shani and Aadhi, as the latter makes a rough attempt to escape. Or the sequence where Aadhi finally manages to get out, but finds himself getting tricked again by the duo. Asif Ali and Nimisha Sajayan's performances also do plenty of good to these portions, especially the former, though the usually explosive Anthony Varghese is just about okay here. Athulya Chandra grabs your attention as the actress caught between her suspicious husband and philandering lover.

Innale Vare keeps the momentum right till when Aadhi decides to have his own play on the duo. However, the final sequence disappointed me when it did something I predicted it might happen and it annoyingly did - using a human 'Chekhov's Gun' to give the two kidnappers a reason to target Aadhi. The epilogue is also tame, and it also raises questions on how some of the mess the three characters created got forgotten by the people in the know. There is also a feeling that, even when the film's darker scenes, Jis Joy couldn't completely commit himself to embracing the darkness of those scenes, despite quite a few cuss words thrown at certain female characters. At times, I really didn't get the sense of timing as to when certain events are taking place. Like in the end, it is revealed that the kidnapper duo only targeted Aadhi as a revenge, but the film shows them planning for the kidnapping much longer than the said instigating incident happened.

Still, Innale Vare isn't a bad film and is quite refreshing when it comes to the director's filmography, especially compared to his last outing, the very average Mohan Kumar Fans. Mohan Kumar Fans Movie Review: Siddique and Kunchacko Boban’s Feel-Good Entertainer Only Works in Bits and Parts.

Yay!

- The Middle Act

- Asif Ali and Nimisha Sajayan

Nay!

- Take a Predictable Turn Towards the End

- Direction is Pretty Ordinary

Final Thoughts

Innale Vare, thanks to its engaging middle act, is quite a decent and watchable thriller that stands out from the director's usually diabetic fare that has its own fans (I am a huge fan of his Sunday Holiday). Innale Vare is streaming on SonyLIV.

Rating:3.0

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 10, 2022 04:32 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).