For all those of us critics who believe Malayalam cinema is way ahead of the rest of Indian cinema, ‘Kattalan’ (dubbed in Hindi) is a wakeup call. It is loud — oh boy, is it loud, you need two pairs of earplugs and nerves of steel to survive. And it is in terribly bad taste: elephants are killed like flies. But then so are human beings. So I guess in the mind of writer-director Paul George, it all evens out.
‘Kattalan’ is about the smuggling of elephant tusks, referred to as “white gold” by all the meanies who, by the way, look and behave the same. There are no moral boundaries in the tussle for tusks in this blotchy boorish film.
There is a complete denial of coherence and restrain. Guns and knives get pivotal roles. The villains pop out one after another. They all look sinister and unbathed, like junior artistes from Ram Gopal Varma’s universe, obsessed with the tusk.
The brutality is relentless, and pointless. Little girls are assaulted by an arch villain who likes to be called Maari (Sunil). Who are we to question his choice of name (would you be intimidated by any man called Maari?) or his restricted repertoire of expressions, from scowl to snarl, and back.
Maari wants to own the entire tusk force (the puns are to amuse myself) in a place named Aanakolli, a forest village at the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. He is joined in his evil scheme by other assorted villains. I have no clue who they are and why we should watch them unleash a reign of terror on hapless villagers.The terror inflicted on the audience is another narrative altogether.
All of them smoke constantly — this being the 1980s when smoking was “not so injurious to health” — and narrow their eyes as if they can see what a mess the screenplay is. But no one is complaining. Not in the film. They are all busy trying to be villains, even the hero, Anthony played by Anthony Verghese, who has an interesting face trapped in a plot which hops, skips and jumps from one creepy carnage to another.
I am still not sure whose side Anthony is on. The screenplay shuffles the ‘cads’ until they all seem to be playing a grisly game of musical chairs.
That reminds me of the background score (by Ravi Basrur). Evidently inspired by the noise decibel in ‘KGF’, the sound design is so obstreperous it drowns all the dialogue.
Somewhere in the desperate din, the writers and director Paul George forgot to write in a leading lady. Nancy (Dushara Vijayan) makes a delayed appearance, all guns blazing. She is Fearless Nadia on speed. Nancy is the only prominent female character (not counting the item song, which is gender-abusive). The rest of the women are a blur of wailing humanity, being raped and murdered by Maari as they await the Messiah’s appearance.
He, the ivory glower with unlimited power, is busy trying to figure out whose side he is on.
Would ‘Kattalan’ find its audience among the ‘Dhurandhar’ addicts? Ivory much doubt it.
