Twenty One gms Malayalam Movie

Feature Film | 2022 | Crime, Mystery, Suspense
Critics:
21 Grams has its flaws but is a decent whodunit with a good climax. An unpredictable ending is what a sucker for the genre mainly wants. The big reveal here comes organically out of the screenplay, and the suspense is well earned.
Mar 24, 2022 By Sreejith Mullappilly

Where To Watch:
Streaming:
   Disney+hotstar

Right from the start, Bipin Krishna's 21 Grams has an air of familiarity to it. A man walks out of a car in a hoodie at night and approaches something, leaving us thinking about his identity. Is he the killer the cops in the movie will chase for around two hours? As it turns out, he is the killer connected to a group of murders in town. But who is he?


Anoop Menon plays DYSP Nanda Kishore, a police officer with an extraordinary sense of intuition. Each time Nandan solves a part of the puzzle, he finds a missing piece and then the chase continues. But each time he unravels the puzzle, Nandan also realizes that the case goes beyond his professional life. The director uses a puzzle of a family photograph as a trigger for Nandan that makes him pursue a missing link in the case he investigates. It is like he remembers something or the other each time he sees the portrait puzzle, which seems a bit gimmicky.


21 Grams seems a tad familiar in terms of its presentation of the mystery genre and narrative style. There are minor fake clues in the movie planted here and there just to keep the audience guessing about the identity of the killer. Take a specific symbol in the man in the hoodie, for instance. There are also possibility issues with some aspects of the film.


In some movies, you get the impression that a character is shady when you see someone, and your intuition proves right later. You also feel that way due to the presence of an object with a character but soon realize that it is there to mislead the viewer. The same applies to 21 Grams. There are some such characters and objects in this movie. But at least it does not rely too much on red herrings or fake suspense to trick the viewer. The big reveal at the end comes organically out of the screenplay, and the suspense is well earned.


I feel the casting part of the movie is not as good as possible. Anoop Menon is a good actor and is not bad as a cop character here. Anoop is good enough to keep our interest in the thriller aspects of the movie throughout. However, he should have better tapped into the deep sense of loss for his character. Leona Lishoy is competent, but the movie mostly reduces her character to a co-passenger in the thriller journey that it takes. At some points, you wonder why a high-ranking officer discusses his police work a lot with his wife. Of the cast, it is Manasa Radhakrishnan who manages to leave a big impression in a small role.


All said, 21 Grams is miles ahead of your average suspense thriller. Jithu Damodar's stellar nocturnal frames and Deepak Dev's background score keep us invested in the proceedings even as the pace dips. Then there is that climax, which I do not want to talk about much.

Sreejith Mullappilly

   

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