As the title and the credits roll, you will notice that the Director is trying to make a statement. A statement that Kalamkaval is not a typical Mammootty film. The tagline “The Venom beneath” added to the title, along with the quote “The venom beneath can’t be suppressed forever,” set the mood right at the beginning. Within a few minutes, the film’s central plot is established, centred on a psycho serial killer and his escapades.
The film opens with Mammootty, seemingly a family man, leaving his house late at night after receiving a phone call. The film is set in the early 2000s, when simple Nokia mobile phones were in vogue. A lady soon joins him in his car, and they check into a hotel. In the hotel room, a very odd conversation takes place between the two, at the end of which Mammootty kills the lady very violently. You feel as bewildered as the lady at the sudden turn of events. The film is subsequently about murders and how the police track the murderer, which is no mystery to us.
Mammootty plays the role of this psychopathic killer who goes about identifying middle-aged women, wooing them, and killing them systematically using novel means, leaving no trace. There is no motive or background depicted for Mammootty’s behaviour. The police are in hot pursuit of him, and the rest of the story is whether they can track him down. Actor Vinayagam plays the lead cop who is on the lookout for Mammootty. You can see that there has been a casting reversal here, with Mammootty, the usual hero, playing the antagonist, and Vinayagam, the regular villain, playing the protagonist. This one aspect comes as a huge saviour for the film.
The film is essentially a cat-and-mouse game between Mammootty and Vinayagam, with Mammootty always trying to stay one step ahead of the police. These sequences keep us quite hooked. But, from a believability point of view, I found the whole proceedings hollow. Even if it was set 20 years ago, when security cameras were not common, the repeated cycle of Mammootty finding ladies, killing them, and then moving on with life easily came across as too casual and frivolous. Though these acts tend to get monotonous after a while, the proceedings are saved by the climax, which is conceived very well.
If one sets aside the logical fallacies in the screenplay, the film is quite engaging. As the film unfolds in chapters, the titles give away what is coming. So, the director Jithin K Jose and co-writer Jishnu Sreekumar are clear that the suspense about the killer is only for the cops in the film, not for us. From that perspective, the screenplay is quite interesting. The film takes place on the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and therefore there is a seamless interplay of Malayalam and Tamil dialogue that feels very organic.
I wondered why Vinayagam was cast for the role, but he justifies his casting with a resounding performance towards the end. Mammootty plays the typical Jekyll-and-Hyde character with abundant skill in dialogue delivery, body language, and, of course, restraint. He is far from charming, and I can’t figure out why ladies keep falling for him.
Mujeeb Majeed, who had done the background score for Eko, also composed the score for this film, and what an imaginative and engaging score it turned out to be. It is easy to go overboard on the background score front in such films, but Mujeeb chooses to sublimely blend his score with the proceedings rather than stand out. Faisal Ali’s camerawork, particularly the lighting, is another highlight of the film. I found the dubbing and dialogue delivery completely off-sync, even for Mammootty and Vinayagam, and it took a while to get used to that disconnect.
It seems Kalamkaval is Jithin’s first film as a director. He gives a good account of himself right away, showing reasonable control of the craft. However, I found the writing and screenplay not fleshed out properly, with the focus being just on moving the story ahead without closing the loops. In such situations, the film would have fallen flat but for the pitch-perfect performances of the lead actors.
I also felt that Jithin had overworked himself to add mystique to the film when none existed. For example, take the title itself. Kalamkaval, meaning a spiritual ritualistic performance art of Kerala, ultimately has no relevance in the film! It seemed to me like overenthusiasm to show off too much, given that it was his 1st film. How else would you explain stuff like “perks of being a compulsive nihilist” kind of titles for chapters?
Kalamkaval adds to the list of offbeat Malayalam films revolving around murders and police procedurals that have flooded the market. It is an Okay watch if you are a fan of this genre. It is streaming on Sony Liv.
AnandKumarRSonFilms 
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