The Sound Of Boot

Cast: Suresh Gopi, Bala, Honey, Lakshana, Rajan P Dev, Murali, Sona Nair, Rizabava, Bheeman Raghu, Maniyan Pilla Raju, Krishnakumar, Biju Pappan
Language: Malayalam
Banner: Pyramid Saimira Productions
Director: Shaji Kailas
Producer: Pyramid Saimira Productions
Camera: Rajaratnam
Story: Rajesh Jayaraman
Screenplay: Rajesh Jayaraman
Dialogue: Rajesh Jayaraman
Lyrics: Vayalar Sarathchandra Varma
Music: Shaan
Distribution: Pyramid Saimira Release
Year: 2008

‘The Sound Of Boot’, the new film by Shaji Kailas, is not a superlative inquiring cinema experience, even though soaked in tension, character and atmosphere. The movie, whose structure is basically a murder investigation, has an intriguing look, a bit closely following the footsteps of 'Ee Thanutha Veluppan Kaalathu'.

The film follows the tracks  of S P  Siddharth Mahadevan , who is following the commotion surrounding the killing of two senior police officials, Rtd I G Raghavan Nambiar  and SP Abdul Sathar, shortly after their farewell dinner from service,  and also  a missing case of Meera Nambiar,  that occurs at a hilly landscapes. On the very first day itself, he bumps into Rahul Krishna, a college student who has a piece of story to tell about his relation with Meera .

Following the leads, he crashes into the resort holiday home and its caretaker Shankaranarayan, where Siddharth finds the corpse of Meera. Brought in under the clout of suspicion as to his actual role in the event, Shankaranaryanan presents his version of the incidents that happened there, leading to the killings. Each fragment takes the viewer up through the first moment of the previous scene. There are also story flashbacks that are shown in linear sequence, and they move against the main story .But with a few supportive traces, Siddharth builds his cloying version of all the deeply buried secrets, that is finally presented as the original story. As it turns out, there are not any eyeballs awaiting spectacles, but certainly an unexpected additional twist to the proceedings intended to add thrills to the show.

The plot, while slightly thin with lesser number of beautifully drawn out characters, is pictured in picturesque Moonnar and Peerumade, where people hide in shadows (intended to add speculations) and policemen making their own rules, running the high ranges, especially during the declared emergency of the seventies. The scriptwriter Rajesh Jayaraman has tried his best to present all proceedings, operating under a set of rules unique to detective cinema. The highlight is that in aiming for this memorable allegiance, however, he doesn't fall into the documentary trap. Moreover he succeeds in interweaving narrative of crimes conducted and enacted in the midst of an insurgency regime in the name of surveillance, also portraying the cruel acts of a forgotten decade which unsettled the lives of hundreds. The downside of the film is that the gloomy mystery is not airtight, as it is built around a lot of coincidences and events that finds hard to fit in place to develop a totally engaging plot.

And for the director Shaji Kailas , the saying goes, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it ''. Far from the demands of the scripts, nothing seems to be absent from Shaji's usual fare, even though he tries to be a bit classy. He has done fairly better in the opening half but in the later, the movie runs out of steam, making an acclivitous mechanical attempt to involve us. Shaji fails to maintain the atmosphere of suspense or tension all through ,particularly towards the end,  reminding many of his loose- ended  antecedents .One can't help but be disappointed with how "Sound Of Boot '' resolves( with impracticable executioners in bizarre uniforms) , even though it has a better tail piece.

But a few superb performances can never hurt. Suresh Gopi as Siddharth Mahadevan is a welcome relief from his usual agitated mannerisms. And certainly due to that, this may not probably win over the masses. The other actor who deserved mention is Murali , who has brought in a stupefying performance.

In the technical sides also the film is superior with crisp editing by Arunkumar (Sorry, for his credit is montage) and moody photography and extreme angles by Raja Rathnam in which no values are compromised, even though the film was shot in a record 25 days. The only song in the film 'Yamuna Theeram' is an unwanted suffering, but Rajamani in rerecording definitely sets the pace with enthralling theme music.

If you can walk away with several weak plot points that may inquire your intellect, the movie may make you feel as a well made 'endeavor'.   It may be unfair to expect a wondrous exclamation, from the viewer's side ' at the end of a picture but certainly 'The Sound Of Boot' is not the one to be avoided, at least for its atypical narratives. Perhaps that may be the point that the makers are also bearing in their minds.

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