Dulquer looked possessed with 'Kali' as the actor yet again delivered his charisma on screen while expressing hysterical shades of anger, throughout the movie. Sai Pallavi continues to impress with her on screen presence and simplicity of expressions, while the actress's dialogue delivery sounded animated at times. Like Shakespeare's Macbeth who crumbled to a tragic fate owing to his characteristic flaw of being over ambitious, every man has a psychological flaw which when aggravated might invite catastrophic reactions in life. Sameer Tahir on his third directorial venture 'Kali', meaning 'rage', explores one of mankind's most dangerous emotions and its subsequent variants, extending to untamed rage.
'Kali', is a gripping tale of an angry young man 'Siddarth'(Dulquer Salman) and his lover turned wife Anjali (Sai Pallavi), who is destined to absorb the unwanted fury of Siddharth. The first half of the movie stitches together incidents that reveal the growth of Siddharth's anger from his childhood to college days and then to the present times where he works as a bank employee. The movie without wasting time for usual cheesy love sequences shifts swiftly into the post marriage life of Sidddarth and Anjaly, providing some intriguing insights into their co existence amidst emotional outbursts. Dulquer looked possessed with 'Kali' as the actor yet again delivered his charisma on screen while expressing hysterical shades of anger, throughout the movie. Sai Pallavi continues to impress with her on screen presence and simplicity of expressions, while the actress's dialogue delivery sounded animated at times. The second half of the movie takes a darker tone, when the cou ple gets struck in the middle of nowhere, as situations worsen with Siddarth's unruly behaviour. Estranged from their urban habitat, the couple get stranded in a sub urban village in Tamilnadu, where Siddarth is forced to abide his anger. For the first time Siddharth's anger is shown tamed when he had to confront humans with far more animalistic instincts, and that's when the movie becomes interesting. The introduction of 'Chakkara' (Chemban Vinod)and 'Josettan' (Vinayakan) in the second half mounts the intensity of the movie as both Chemban Vinod and Vinayakan essay their negative roles with ease.
Samir Tahir has turned a tricky script of Rajesh Gopinadhan into a watchable movie complimented by an excellent performance by the cast. The care with which rage, the omnipresent protagonist in the movie is developed needs to be appreciated especially while focussing on instances where Siddharth's anger was just an immediate reaction to his surroundings. The movie also tries to project the grey side of lawless sub urban pockets of Tamil Nadu, if not India.
Even though Gopi Sundar's back ground score adds to the tension of the movie, there have been claims that the Gopi Sundar has copied the music from a foreign language movie, which the music director has now accepted.
So if you don't mind clichés like villains being dark in colour, women depicted as the one who need protection, and usual concepts of heroism , then 'Kali' is indeed a movie to be watched once.
