Cold Case

The plot of the film makes for an engaging investigative thriller. But there’s a parallel story about a soul seeking revenge that doesn’t work effectively. On paper, the idea to have a story told through two parallel threads may sound interesting; however, the execution isn’t convincing enough to have us hooked. It would’ve made sense if the film was either an investigative thriller or a supernatural thriller. Somehow, the attempt to merge the genres only complicates what could’ve otherwise been a cracker of a thriller. Even after merging the genres, the story somehow focuses more on Prithviraj’s character as he also happens to be a star. Sathyajith ends up cracking most of the case and there’s very little left for Medha to do. In the end, Medha’s side of the story hardly makes any impact and leaves one scratching their head.

The grimness and pretentious tone of the film is a dead giveaway of Sreenath V Nath’s cluelessness about the material he’s dealing with. The screenplay is full of errors that ruins the interest of the audience in the movie. The puzzles are too easy to solve, and narrative errors are so depressingly silly to forgive. The editing senselessly jumps from one scene to another and we are treated to camera movements, which have no meaning and do nothing to improve a mediocre story.

Despite the hype and anticipation, there seem to have been visible issues with the dubbing and questions on whether some of the characters did justice to their roles as it fell flat. Alternation between the lives and investigational journey of the lead characters was an interesting way to move the story forward, but the narrative shift could have been a bit more seamless. Standing apart from the generic crime thriller investigation movies, Prithviraj has done a stellar role as he methodically unravels the mystery around death. His character stood in contrast with the typical boisterous police investigators as he played a mellow and methodical officer. Opening with parallel possibilities and multiple could be murderers, the movie does hold the attention of the viewer, particularly during the first half. However, moving toward the climax, it seemed to have been a bit of a let-down.