Kolaigaran - Arrests with twists and turns
The film opens with the blurred image of a man murdering a girl (Ashima Narwal) by slitting her throat and later a body of a charred man is found and Prabhakaran (Vijay Antony) surrenders to the police. The flashback shows that Prabhakaran and Dharani (Ashima Narwal) are neighbours and he is stalking her. Straight-laced cop Karthikeyan (Arjun) starts investigating and suspects Dharani and her mother (Seetha) of the second crime. Are the two women guilty? What is the connection between them and Prabhakaran? and is Prabhakaran a cold-blooded psychopath murderer or something beyond is what 'Kolaigaran' is all about.
Vijay Antony has achieved mastery in deadpan expressions and once again it helps in adding that much more mystery to his character. He is very convincing in the couple of brutal murders he commits and has come good in the emotional climax sequence. Action King Arjun brings authority to the tenacious cop Karthikeyan without much effort. Ashima Narwal plays the girl next door and looks it every bit and is a good debut for her in Tamil cinema. Veterans Nassar and Seetha have important roles that they sleepwalk in while Bhagavathy Perumal also makes a not so impressive appearance.
What works best in 'Kolaigaran' is the twists and turns thrown every ten minutes that hold attention in spite of being contrived most of the time. The schizophrenia angle to the lead character adds to the intrigue and pays off well, emotionally in the climax. Vijay Antony's backstory (once again contrived) helps in justifying how he fools the cops. The minus points in the screenplay are covered up by a well-executed climax.
On the downside, the dialogues are unnatural and most of the scenes seem staged hampering the audience from fully engaging with the characters and screenplay. Karthikeyan gets to know who Prabhakaran is at the halfway mark and the biggest mystery is he waits till the climax to deduce why the suspect is obsessed with the girl.
Simon K King's theme music for 'Kolaigaran' which is already a hit is used in different orchestrations throughout the film to good effect. The songs are hummable but are placed in the most inappropriate places. Mukesh's cinematography is another big plus conveying the tense moments especially when the screenplay switches to a whodunit. Richard Kevin could have hastened the pace as the less than two hours runtime is not as crisp as it should be. Andrew Louis has taken inspiration from the Japanese novel 'The Devotion of Suspect X' and has come up with a fairly engaging thriller that is rewarding in its final moments.
TRIVIA - This genre and a similar subject were tackled by the late Manivannan as early as 1986 in 'Vidinja Kalyanam' a good two decades before the Japanese novel was written and thirty years before 'The Devotion of Suspect X' (Film) or 'Drishyam'.
Verdict : Go for this psycho-thriller/murder mystery which will not disappoint fans of the genres as well as the general audiences.
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