Kaali Movie Review – This Vijay Antony film disappoints

The premise of Kaali is simple, an Indian doctor who lives with his adoptive parents sets out on a journey to source his roots and find his biological parents. As precise and interesting as that sounds, Kaali isn’t even half-close to being an engaging film. Director Krithika Udhayanidhi takes on a potential script, however, due to the incoherent plot and mindless writing, the film goes haywire.

Bharath (Vijay Antony) lands in India, on a quest to find his mother and father. He soon discovers that his mother died when he was young, and the identity of his father is unknown. His life takes on new twists and turns after he meets three people who unintentionally help him discover the truth about his father.

For starters, the film starts off on a fairly interesting note, however, the writing of the film is all over the place. Vijay Antony appears in a bizarre film,  that explores loves, sacrifice,lust, caste-divide in an ultimate purpose of finding his biological father. If the first flashback sequences of love and loss are unnecessary, the second one two seems like a gruelling method of testing one’s level of patience. After wasting some solid amount of time and effort in flashback sequences, and establishing itself as an outdated film the final reveal is made in a long and overdrawn climax. It’s an easy job to guess by now that the film makes very little sense, and no matter how hard it tries to convince you with its intertwining plots – the logic just doesn’t add up.

Vijay Antony, plays triple roles in this film and each story sets off in the most unassuming way, the makers of the film should have made three parts to this film. The comedy track by Yogi Babu that’s irrelevant to the story. Given that the story is a serious one, the comedy serves as distractions. Vijay Antony, who has worked on intelligent films such as Salim and Naan, does deliver sincere and compelling act as Vasudevan and Kaali. Heroines Sunaina, Amritha and Shilpa Manjunath deliver impressive performances. Anjali has very little to do. It’s a pity that director Krithika Udhayanidhi who directed the impressive Vannakam Chennai disappoints with this one. It’s quite a shock to see fat-shaming jokes, sexist lines in a film directed by a woman who displayed so much of sensibility in her first film. In the film, Kaali is blessed to have the patience to listen to the lengthy flashback that transports him to the 80s, however, he did go wrong in assuming the audience would have the same level curiosity and tolerance.