*No spoliers*
Pandiraj teams up with Vishal to deliver his first action thriller. He has managed to pack this intense thriller short and crisp. And achieved it successfully. Kathakali is in the line of Thadayara Thaaka, having just two incidents. One is an ongoing incident dealing with the emotions of suspects. Another one is an unexplained incident which is revealed only in the climax. Pandiraj keeps the audience guessing and throws all the possibilities. Then he surprises us in the climax.
Second half was moved intelligently by reserving the twists for climax. But Kathakali mainly suffers in the first half. Some scenes were not dealt in detail and story almost starts before interval. Love track and comedy portions were poorly written by Pandiraj which serves as the biggest minus. Catherine Theresa's dubbing was pathetic and totally distracted the audience.
An established supporting actor can mislead a thriller due to his influence of previous movies. So Pandiraj mostly has chosen unfamiliar faces for the other characters (Mostly actors who are two or three movies old). This was an intelligent technique to confuse the audience more.
Editing (Pradeep Rajan) was topnotch especially in interval block and second half. It was Hiphop Thamizha's background score which gives the intensity and keeps us engaged even in some weak fight scenes. Hiphop's songs have no big situations but were present just to meet the commercial requirements."Azhage" song was a catchy track."Erangi vanthu" was high in energy but deserved a better choreography. Balasubramaniem,the Pasanga-2 fame did a neat job and captured the night scenes with good color tones.
So, Kathakali is a decent thriller. Kudos to Pandiraj for his tight screen play in second half. With a better first half, Kathakali would have emerged as a great movie.
