Kotthu Malayalam Movie
Sibi Malayil comes back to Malayalam cinema after seven years with the political thriller, Kotthu. It makes the kinds of points similar to many past political thrillers. Surprisingly, it uses a communist party's name, a red flag, and the Inquilab Zindabad slogan to tell a bold story about political killings in northern Kerala. Communist party may be a generic term for a party with Marx and Lenin's principles. However, if you use a red flag and the term communist in a Malayalam film, it refers to the LDF in Kerala.
From the first scene itself, it is clear that Kotthu is making a pacifist stance when it comes to the bloodshed in the name of politics. It shows the brutal murder of a communist party worker as an act of revenge. It questions the sheer pointlessness in killing a person to avenge the murder of a party worker. The point that the film makes is not too dissimilar from the Gandhian ideology, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
Thankfully, Sibi Malayil or writer Hemanth Kumar does not rub our noses in the messaging here. In other words, there is an engaging story of friendship and family in Kotthu. Asif Ali plays Shanu, a hot-headed party worker who would do anything for his party. Roshan Mathew plays Sumesh, Shanu's friend and another party loyalist. Ranjith plays party secretary Sadhanandan who makes all the big calls, and tries everything possible to protect the party workers.
There is often no personal agenda in political killings. Often, people become the victims of political killings for their political views and deeds. The title Kotthu refers to the act of biting back at one's political rivals. It is the antithesis of the Gandhian ideology that I talked about earlier. It is sad that even the friends and families of the victim are made to suffer for what they represent politically.
I remember reading a shocking piece of news about a person who got killed for no fault of his. The party workers who killed that person felt that he belonged to their rival party, whereas he had no party connections. He only came from overseas to see his family and got killed when out and about. I am not saying it is right to kill someone if there is a justifiable reason. By definition, killing is heinous, unlawful, and a sin.
Unfortunately, Kotthu stereotypes political killings in northern Kerala. It happens everywhere, not just there. Only, there, it may be a bit more prevalent. For me, this is not a major deal-breaker because I saw the film as just a piece of entertainment and a human drama.
There are sensible ideas in the movie about political killings. For instance, the movie argues that the party uses the common worker as a mere pawn for these killings, while the powers that be remain untouchable.
What makes the film engrossing is the direction and performances. It takes a good director to make an ordinary movie seem extraordinary. Sibi Malayil shows that he still has a knack for human drama. Kotthu does not break new ground when it comes to the plot, but the storytelling is good. The same goes for the performances from Asif, Roshan, Ranjith, Nikhila Vimal, and Sreelakshmi. The background music by Jakes Bejoy also does a good job of holding our attention even as the movie treads on old ground and becomes a tad predictable.
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