Ananthan Kaadu

The result is a character who remains compelling because he never becomes a mouthpiece for the film's politics.

Murali Gopy, Indrans, Vijayaraghavan, Sunil and Dev Mohan play their parts to perfection.

The production design of the movie has done an impressive job in recreating that period in many scenes, especially the railway station scenes in the climax.

Which is already a problem in a film whose writing promises an ambitious political commentary by attempting to tie the Sri Lankan genocide with the goonda activities of Thiruvananthapuram, only to reduce everything to a revenge drama that you have seen umpteen times before.

Nikhila Vimal gets a minor role where she can hardly make her presence felt, while Santhi Balachandran gets to essay a moderately impactful character.

However, Jiyen Krishnakumar fails miserably in this regard, almost making one wonder if the movie even had a director during its production, given the mediocre-to-shoddy execution evident throughout.

The actor still gets one of the film's most powerful moments when he barges into a party office and fights rogue communists on campus.

Yes, we get some terrific performances from actors like Indrans (who gets the film's best lines), but everyone else is underwritten.

Instead of allowing the characters and situations to build tension naturally, the film relies too much on long speeches, dramatic lines, and predictable conflicts.