Kerala Police

Cast: Kalabhavan Mani, Lakshmi Sharma, Iswarya, Siddique, Nedumudi Venu, Innocent, Suraaj Venjaramoodu, Shammi Thilakan, Bijukuttan, Vijayaraghavan, Saadique, Augustine, Sreehari, Irshad, Sreelatha Namboothiri, Ambika Mohan, Poornima
Language: Malayalam
Director: Chandrashekharan
Producer: Dinesh, Krishnamoorthy
Camera: Sudhi
Story: Anwar Abdullah
Screenplay: Vinu Narayanan
Dialogue: Vinu Narayanan
Lyrics: Gireesh Puthenchery , Jofi Tharakan
Music: Kailas Menon
Year: 2008

Kerala Police is a pedestrian piece of entertainment that lacks originality, freshness and inventiveness. Tiresomely paced, badly written and erroneously directed this cop caper is certainly no fun.

Circle Inspector of Police Satyanath (Kalabhavan Mani) lives up to his name and leaves no stones unturned to ensure that righteousness prevails. Entrusted with the investigation of the murder of a Goan photographer in a local tile factory, Sathyanath unravels more than a few mysteries before the case is hastily wrapped up and handed over to the heady CBI Chief Nandini Verma (Swarnamalya). As the Kerala Police and the CBI race it to the finish, Sanjana (Lakshmi Sharma), the numero uno actress indicted of cold blooded murder, awaits justice.

One could only be appalled to see the film fervently playing up the caste cards, and driving an unsuspecting crowd up an invented hill. The lineage politics at work here is undeniably disgusting and fails to draw in the much expected applause. The film does display a sneakiness in its attempts to casually generalize and tarnish a societal section while busily commending on the valiant efforts of another. It is provocative and often downright offensive and it's not long before you see through the manipulative ploy and steer way off it.

Kalabhavan Mani is his usual self as Sathyanath; this is no radical role that the actor has come across. He is at his spirits in the fire 'n fury sequences and goes about the rest of his job in a nonchalant mode. Swarnamalya does leave an impact, courtesy Vimmy Mariam George, that stupendous dubbing artiste lending her awesome voice to an otherwise real passé character destined to be trodden beneath the hero's heels. Lakshmi Sharma sheds off (literally) the Palunku image, and looks slightly discomfited in the process. Innocent and Bijukuttan as police men might sound a bit too atrocious on the eyes, but with Kerala Police, you really don't have a choice.

The action fails to cause any exhilaration, and most of the characters are wafer-thin. Mercifully there are no songs either. Sudhi does no wonders with the camera; the gimmicks are minimal and the job done quite appropriate.

There's nothing much to dwell on, when it comes to the storyline. The formulaic plot follows a much trampled path, and the suspense build up nothing more than run of the mill. Its nonspecific backdrop and low-scale action sequences prove to be a mostly unmemorable affair. Loud, long-winded and boring, the film goes down in an ocean of ceaseless pursuits and misery-go-rounds!

A wholly inept script and truly ruinous direction see to it that the nails on this coffin are banged right in. Save your Sunday for anything better; Kerala Police just isn't worth it!

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