Kaapa Movie Review: Be it Kaduva or now Kaapa, there is deliberate effort from director Shaji Kailas at least in his treatment to be in sync with the current times. I cannot say the same about his inclination towards creating mass moments and obsession with alpha masculinity. Still, a film like Kaapa looks so different from the films the director used to make a few years back. Can I say we are looking at Shaji Kailash 2.0, and that is a good sign for the future of the once hit-maker? Kaapa: Prithviraj Sukumaran’s First Look As Kotta Madhu Out!

In Kaapa, we are first introduced to Anand (Asif Ali) and Binu (Anna Ben), an IT couple who has recently moved to Thiruvananthapuram from Bengaluru. During a police checkup, Anand learns about his wife's murky family past through a shady police officer (Nandu), and that she, unbeknownst to even her, is in the police goonda list as per KAAPA act (goonda act) for being the 'leader' of her dead brother's gang.

Anand is told that only person who could get them out of this situation, is also someone Binu has a deep hatred towards - Kotta Madhu (Prithviraj Sukumaran), the local gang leader whose wife Prameela (Aparna Balamurali) is the district collector, and who is eyeing the upcoming elections for city corporator. What is Kotta Madhu's deal and whether he could help Anand out of his sticky situation is what the rest of Kaapa is about.

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Kaapa has a storyline that should have made for quite a good gangster drama. After Malik, the setting of Thiruvananthapuram is well-utilised to create an interesting milieu for the movie's plot, and gives Prithviraj another dialect to shine in. A few years back, it was Kochi that was shown as the haven of underworld elements, now it is the capital who seems to have caught the filmmakers' attention.

Anyway, after taking a cliched route of showing a future scene as a prologue, Kaapa starts off good by introducing the IT couple and then through Anand, build up on the mystique around Kotta Madhu's character. Shrouded in greyness, Kotta Madhu could have made for a very compelling anti-hero, had Shaji Kailas not indulged in, well, Kailas-isms.

Kaapa worked well, when the events were shown through Anand's POV, but suffers a huge identity crisis when the focus falls on Kotta Madhu, and that happens for majority of the screentime. Even though some of his mannerisms reminded me of Mohanlal (which I felt was also the case in the actor's last release, Gold), Prithviraj is one of the few lead actors in Malayalam Cinema who can pull off a larger-than-life screen presence, and the director has put that to full show here. However, while that did work somewhat well in Kaduva, it has a reverse effect here. The one-man show brings down the drama, and makes the film go through usual paces. On the other hand, Asif Ali's fish-out-of-water act is quite interesting and it is his portions that work well for the film. Kaduva Movie Review: Prithviraj Sukumaran Roars Mighty in this Standard-Fare Shaji Kailas Entertainer.

Still Kaapa, thankfully, isn't a typical Shaji Kailas film, and that might have more to do with Jomon T John's bronzed frames and GR Indugopan's script. Just see how the director utilises Jagadeesh, who otherwise would have had played a comic sidekick to the hero in his usual films. Here, while still a right-hand man to Kotta Madhu, Jagadeesh's Jaffar is a man whose distrustfulness is forged out of scars from his foes' swords, and is willing to take more scars for his master. It is a very captivating performance from the veteran actor, who seems to be in a fine serious knick after Rorschach.

Shaji Kailas also pays homage to one of his most landmark hits, Narasimhan, through a plotline involving Madhu's old foe not being allowed to attend his dead mother's funeral, but in a less effective manner. There are also a couple of sequences that show how Madhu is going through a psychological turmoil due to some of his past deeds, which is quite mature and unexpected from a film like this. And yet, that is soon forgotten to make way for more hypermachoistic stuff.

Kaapa becomes much better in the third act, that puts Anand back in the spotlight and uses him as a catalyst for a crucial plot turn. While the events that happen afterwards come as a pleasant surprise, storytelling-wise (another unexpected turn from a Shaji Kailas film), they do not come without certain logical hassles. Like why would someone like Madhu, who is wary his entire life, would put his guard down for a man who he barely knows. Or why would Anand even drag himself into a mess he barely managed to get out of, for Madhu's longtime foe and yellow crime news editor Latheef (Dileesh Pothan, makes for a very good antagonist), a man who Anand himself is quite mistrustful of. The writing here is quite shaky to make these character turns believable. Gold Movie Review: Nayanthara and a Whole Bunch of Fine Actors Are Wasted in This Prithviraj Sukumaran-Alphonse Puthren Comic Thriller.

The two women in the film - Anna Ben's Binu and Aparna Balamurali's Prameela - do better than what poor Samyuktha Menon was given in Kaduva. Yet, for most of the portions in Kaapa, they are kept in the sidelines even though their characters play integral roles in the film. The third act, however, allows the ladies to shine, and easily giving Kaapa it's best scene. But by then, it is a bit too late, and it made me wistfully wonder how Kaapa could have been a much better movie had the film not opted to give more prominence to Prithvi's one man show, and given the other principal characters more room to shine.

Final Thoughts

Kaapa had the makings of an enthralling crime drama that gets derailed when the middle portions engage in one-man-show and usual gangster tropes. Still, it has a few decent surprises, especially the third act, and good performances, and could make for a decent one-time watch.

Rating:2.5

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 22, 2022 11:20 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).