Malayalam Film Guardian an interesting watch

 

Guardian

directed by Satish Paul released on Prime Reels movie apps platform on New Year, is one of the well scripted crime investigation story with a perfect casting, all round good performances and a perfect watch on such a platform. In scripting out a story where the audience is kept posted of the happenings of the murderer and the cops on the trail, a slight slip can bring the entire film crashing down. Here Satish does his job well to a great extent.

A medical doctor married a patient whom he treated for a suicide attempt due to love failure. Years later, the wife  gets a packet that has photos of her with her lover boy who ditched her. The motive is blackmail and amount is Rs 50 lakhs. The blackmailer is an unknown Tamilian. Instead of letting hubby know about it, she digs out her ex lover and trusts him to solve the mess. This appears to be the only wrong note in the story. Her trust in a man who betrayed her and keeping it a secret from her hubby who has accepted her with open arms is  hard to digest. Such judgmental errors should have been backed by any behavioral traits. This kind of flaw crops up again when the hubby who comes to know that his wife is blackmailed for her past , does not take her in confidence to fight the common enemy.

Keeping this apart, the way the hubby goes about scripting the death of the ex lover and leaving the cops to accept the evidence planted by him to accept that it was the dead man’s accomplice who was responsible is brilliant. Sijoy Varghese as the SP and Saiju Kurup as the hubby are the main stay of the film. Mia does not much scope to emote as she is in a role of a new IPS appointee in awe of the SP. Nayana Elsa  does fit the bill as the wife. Shiyas Kareem ( Bigg Boss fame) has not much as he gets bumped off much early in the proceedings. Director’s knowledge of engineering is put to clever use in the scripting.

The detailed explanation by the SP to the newly appointed IPS gal about methods of investigation seems to be funny as he says what every cop worth his salt would know and nothing earth shaking. The SIT could have  probed the locals as it takes place in a one horse town in a plantation and could have got the accomplice easily. All said and done a perfect watch on OTT.