The first few scenes of Shahad Nilambur’s Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar remind one of Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, in how undramatically we find out about the death of Aleena Abraham’s (Parvathy Thiruvothu) husband on duty. Aleena, with a child and the hopes of her husband’s family pinned on her, takes the police job on offer. There are no theatrics, no sad ballads or wave of sympathy for her, her baby or her situation. Theatrics is for later, but manufacturing sympathy almost never enters the picture, for Aleena is cut from a different cloth. The film then speedruns—a montage covers her training, a split-second encounter with her husband’s former colleague, her posting to a station in Kottayam and getting comfortable with the new workplace and her sufficiently leisurely colleagues, all of them in the lowest rungs of the police hierarchy. We realize that time has passed and the baby is now a toddler.
Just as we wait for Aleena and her mates to sink their teeth into a case, an uneventful Christmastime night patrol turns violent and there is a dead body in the station, with the gun held by all four—Aleena, Divya (Unnimaya Prasad), Sreenath (Mathew Thomas) and Dasan (Sidharth Bharathan). Ostensibly it's a custodial death, only no one apart from the four is present in the station. Shahad with his writers, PS Subramanian and Vijesh Thottingal, eschew the quietness of the beginning for a pointed and thrilling narrative that expects us to be in lockstep with the events. Aleena becomes a not-so-reluctant mastermind of the coverup (Divya was responsible for the gun but it was Aleena’s finger on the trigger) and the four officers now need to run the clock: make sure there is no reason for anyone to file a missing person complaint for 14 days so that the CCTV footage will be recorded over.
Pradhama Drishtiya becomes something like Columbo, an inverted detective story where we the audience know what’s up. Shahad also helps us develop a rapport with these officers by giving us a peep into their inner lives. Dasan has a crush on a local schoolteacher and receives all the encouragement from the rest of the gang. Divya and her husband are trying to conceive; Aleena even recommends a doctor. Sreenath comes from extremely humble background and has a girlfriend whose religious family is against their inter-caste relationship. All of them are tasting new beginnings or itching to get there—a murder accusation, unemployment and prison will be a death knell.
The film comes alive in the breathtaking cover-up portions. Shahad cuts with dramatic flair between the sweaty palms of the officers and crime branch’s famed detective-by-day-writer-by-night Haris Meeran (Vijayaraghavan, a majestic authoritative presence). Parvathy’s Aleena remains the architect, and she is a curious character. She can be as jittery as the rest but composes herself when the stakes get high. She is calculating and diabolical with the way she eliminates the obstacles in their way; when fellow officer Xavier (Azees Nedumangad) grows suspicious of them, she orchestrates an investigation that gets him out of their hair.
Parvathy plays Aleena with acute awareness. As the film’s anchor, her steady mind and unbent will are shadowed by the moral quandary she faces. At the scene of the crime, at the exact instant she decides to bury the case, a lone lightbulb shines on her in an otherwise dark room. It’s a sort of heroic moment that reinforces the side we should be taking, even if we just witnessed these upright officers commit murder. The film continuously plays with this dilemma, the act of killing only rationalized by whom did they kill.
A great sleight-of-hand here is making Aleena an admirer of Haris Meeran the crime writer. This makes the hunter and hunted an idol and a fan, a dynamic that lends itself to a more profound one-upmanship. Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar feels overlong even if there is never a dull moment. When things come to light and matters reach judicial cognizance, Shahad dials up the theatrics. The comparisons with Mohanlal's Drishyam series are unavoidable. As Drishyam gets more unserious with yet another volume, maybe we can reach a conclusion if Aleena Abraham investigates Georgekutty.
‘Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar’ is in theatres.
Aditya Shrikrishna is a Chennai-based critic.