KADARAM KONDAN (2019)
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| Critic - No.169 |
Director: Rajesh M Selva
Casts: Vikram, Abi Hassan, Akshara Hassan
Language: Tamil
Genre: Action / Thriller
Music: Ghibran
SYNOPSIS:
Vasu (Abi Hassan), a young medical trainee, after rescuing one of his patients from a murder attempt finds out that his pregnant wife, Aathirah (Akshara Hassan) is abducted, and the kidnappers demand the patient he saved in exchange for her release.
REVIEW:
It was an exciting news for Indian film buffs when two solid actors join hand for a project knowing that both of them guarantee quality projects with fine performance scope. Well, Kadaram Kondan does pay off a little with the trademark brand of Rajesh’s action set pieces married with Ghibran’s wall to wall background score.
Similar to his debut film, Rajesh adapts yet another French thriller film, À Bout Portant (Point Black) and gives more important to Vikram’s role that was minor in the original. As seen in the synopsis the film offers a logline for a nerve wrecking racy thriller. On paper, yes it does. As execution, the film does offer the racy part whether it keeps us at the edge of the seat throughout is a question.
Vikram (or KK) is a unnamed, cold looking hero (that reminds me of Kurowsawa’s Yojimbo) who is set out to kill a bunch of corrupted government officials with the help of Vasu who has no way but to help him to save his wife. Vikram’s outlook is great and his lifeless emotion does create a curiosity in us. He looks like someone who has seen the worse in life that he doesn’t get startled by anything. We are never able to gauge who he really is till the end. The man offers so much of swag and class in his performance which is one of the charismatic quality the film offers to keep us engaged.
Akshara-Abi’s love tracks and emotional graph looks powerful at start and the stakes are right up there. However, as the film progresses, the stakes get fizzles out with the gun fires and somehow we feel like we are watching set pieces by set pieces without looking forward to any pay offs. The bond between Vikram and Vasu doesn’t work at all which the story desperately tries to set up.
On a positive note, Kadaram Kondan has a strong technical backup, be it the daring and stunning angles by Srinivas R. Gutha and Ghibran’s songs do come in at the right places to excite us. The stunt sequences are good and the climax brawl between Akshara and the police woman is noteworthy.
Rajesh’s Thoongavanam had the same problem with being unapologetically cold in a sense it doesn’t dwell too much on human emotions at a blatant degree. Same here, he focuses more on the set pieces, technical finesse and small thrills than the bigger stakes, with a crisp runtime of two hours with a sweet ending. Not that we need spoon feeding or melodrama, we just hope he grapples more on the character arcs in his next films. On the whole, Kadaram Kondan does engage us but also keeps us restless on its missing potential points.
VERDICT:
‘Kadaram Kondan’ is a kick-ass action film that engages and fulfills the genre conventions despite its ice-cold emotional graph.
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