Anjaam Pathira sets out as an edge of the seat first half. The background score by Sushin Shyam, the slick editing and the play of lights create the desired shock to the characters, and the audience before they break for the interval. But it loses this quality somewhere in the middle of the second to create a predicatable but fitting ending.
The film begins and ends with Kunjachacko Boban, the consulting criminologist on the case. His first real case, therefore he seems to be the most invested in it, his intuitions take the story forward, this is also one of the flaws in the script. His character does not organically grow to fill the plot like the doctor he played in Virus. Here, he happened to be, and became like a coincidence.
But director Mithun Manuel Thomas has chosen him to shoulder the anticipation of the crimes to be. Even then, his deductions aren’t mindblowing breaks. They aren’t exactly flattering to the round the clock working police force. Therefore, a weak script. A character and actor to look out for, Unnimaya Prasad as the lead investigator in a full length role makes a mark. Her dubbing for this character is also excellent.
That said, in this age when the audience begins to participate in the making of a story streaming in front of us, it becomes tricky to make a film like anjaam pathira. We are unconsciously making our own conclusions and moving to the next scene in our heads, it may match, it may run parallel to the plot until we find a point of re-entry into the plot to continue our hypothesis. But nothing will come close to the motive of these murders until the big reveal here. So much so that when the sketch of the killer is shown to the audience we have no idea who this person is, or how they are related to the crime as this is their first appearance on screen..
the premise of the backstory is relevant to our times, it is a story to be told, to be made aware of, one we should not ignore no matter what.
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