Movie Review : Ka
The film begins with a gruesome incident in 1980 followed by moving to 2020 when Victor Mahadevan ( Salim Ghouse) shoots a young girl to death . Cut to a young wildlife photographer Venba Subbiah ( Andrea Jeremiah) who come into a forest area in the hills on work.
A new forest guard, Madhi, arrives to join work at the Kadapura forest office and has to look after the place when his senior goes off on some work.
When Madhi goes into the forest alone, with no experience in the job and in unfamiliar terrain, he encounters various unexpected dangers and runs into unimagined trouble.
Venba in the meanwhile, slowly discovers that she is not alone in the forest, but in the presence of dangerous criminals armed with guns.
Who are these people? Do Madhi and Venba escape their clutches to safety?
K Arivazhagan's camerawork is superb capturing the beauty of the hills and forests. and scenic beauty of Nature beautifully. The dangers that lurk too, are well captured in the scenes of cat and mouse chases.
The screenplay seems moves at its own sweet pace which requires patience to watch but that pace also sucessfully heightens the suspense.
Director Nanjil's build up to scenes is a good touch which he keeps up with right till the end. The novel use of lighting and darkness to increase effect of certain scenes too amps up the thrills.
The first half takes time to establish the characters and their milieu step by step but the second half moves at a faster pace with lots more happening.
There are several thrilling scenes, like chases of the poachers, the scenes in the cave, the forest office, inside Venba's hideout and the climax.
Andrea perfectly fits the part of a gutsy wildlife photographer, trekker and Nature lover, unafraid of the wild, her athletic and fit physique and body language lending greatee credibility to her role. Though she really fully emerges into her own only in the second half.
Salim Ghouse as Victor the psycho killer gives a solid performance but has boring and repetitive dialogues that don't engage nor reveal much. But his psychotic and unpredictable behaviour does raise chills.
The Bgm revs up the suspense and thrills to match the camera's handiwork and this works big time for the film.
The stunts and chases are interestingly choreographed. Andrea's action scenes deserve mention.
The film picks up pace in the second half right till the climax.
On the flip side are unexpained killings and a weak storyline with no backdrop for any characters. There is no solid reason given for the manhunt nor for the climax.
Ka is an adventure thriller watchable for unexpected twists, supported by sound and cinematography along with Andrea's solid performance and the cat and mouse chases with various characters that crop up across the story . In terms of thrills it has enough to offer, but stronger writing would have helped keep the viewer invested more. Kudos however to director Nanjil for exploring an adventure thriller with a powerful and gutsy female protagonist.
Rating 3/5
Crew:
Director - Nanjil
Producer John Max
Released By - P. Antony Dass MD(Sasikala Production)
Music-Sunder C Babu
DOP - Arivazhagan
Art Palanivel
Editing - Elisa
Stunt Edi Minnal Elango
Lyricist Bala Seetharaman
Singer Female - Kidakuzhi Mariyammal
Singer Male Gold Devaraj
Choreography - Logu
Cast:
Andrea Jeremiah
Samil ghouse
kamalesh,
Arjun Singh
Akshita
Daffe Naveen.
