Kooman Movie Review

Director: Jeethu Joseph

Cast: Asif Ali, Jaffer Idukki, Hannah Reji Koshy

About Jeethu Joseph

Jeethu Joseph (born November 10, 1972) is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer who works primarily in Malayalam cinema.He has also appeared in films in Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi. Detective, a 2007 police procedural, marked Jeethu's directorial debut. Drishyam and Drishyam 2 are his most well-known works.At the time of its release, Drishyam was the highest-grossing Malayalam film ever. It was the first Malayalam film to gross more than Rs. 50 crores at the box office.Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, Drishyam 2 was only available on Amazon Prime Video. It, like its predecessor, received widespread acclaim and appreciation.

Mummy Me (2010), My Boss (2012), Life of Josutty (2015), Memories (2013), Oozham (2016), and Aadhi (2018) are among his other works. Jeethu made his Tamil debut with Papanasam (2015), a remake of his 2013 feature Drishyam, his Hindi debut with The Body (2019), and his Telugu debut with Drushyam 2 (2021).

About Asif Ali

Asif Ali (born 4 February 1986)is an Indian cinema actor and producer who works in Malayalam.Ritu, a 2009 Malayalam language film directed by Shyamaprasad, launched his film career.

In the years since, Asif has appeared in critically and commercially successful films such as the romantic thriller Apoorvaragam, the road thriller Traffic, the romantic comedy Salt N' Pepper, and the period drama Ozhimuri, which was an official selection at the 43rd International Film Festival of India's Indian Panorama section. His 2013 film Honey Bee was a critical and commercial success, and his 2015 film Nirnayakam won the National Film Award for Best Film on Other Social Issues. His run of success continued with roles in the 2016 romantic film Anuraga Karikkin Vellam, the 2017 film Sunday Holiday, the college thriller Btech (2018), and the 2019 film Vijay Superum Pournamiyum, which produced a hat-trick of hits for him with Jis Joy.

He made his debut as a producer in the 2015 film Kohinoor, which was a hit for his production firm Adam's World of Imagination. He later produced the 2016 film Kavi Uddeshichath and released films such as Vimaanam and Iblis.

About Jaffer Idukki

Jaffar Idukki is an Indian actor, impressionist, and comedian who works primarily in Malayalam films. He began his career in 2007 with the film Kaiyoppu, and has since appeared in over a hundred films and a lot of comic stage productions.

About Hannah Reji Koshy

Hannah Reji Koshy is a model and actress from Kerala.She made her acting debut in the Malayalam film Darvinte Parinamam in 2016. She was one of the top six finalists in the Miss India South beauty pageant. She also competed in Miss Diva: Miss Universe India 2018 and placed fifth.

Synopsis and Review of the Movie

The investigative thriller may be filmmaker Jeethu Joseph's most familiar territory, but the major thread relating to the vindictive character played superbly by Asif Ali keeps the fascination alive. Giri (Asif Ali) demonstrates a twisted criminal bent of mind by nursing a grudge and growing it into something large enough to exact revenge. He is, nevertheless, a police officer with an unusually sharp mind. In one of the early sequences, we witness him being moderately angered by a casual remark in a teashop and subsequently attempting to frame him when given the opportunity. When it comes to reacting to individuals who question him or irritate him, his thinking appears to have no sense of proportion.

A tea shop is where some of us get our best ideas. In the case of police constable Giri (Asif Ali), it's like a doorway that sends him the most corrupt notions. The first thing that comes to mind when you see this tea store is that it looks suspiciously similar to the one in the Drishyam flicks. And, like in earlier films, it serves as a gathering spot for people the protagonist despises ? the source of everything that ails Giri. He likes to appear more powerful than his superiors, yet he is frequently reminded that he is only a policeman.

When things get out of hand, he intends to teach his bosses a lesson. The shame and embarrassment drive him to become a protege to an experienced thief (the dependable Jaffer Idukki), who flips a switch that activates Giri's second personality. We soon watch him slipping in and out of residences at night?occupied ones, mind you, because, as his guru instructed him, invading empty ones is boring. And then something occurs after the intermission?it's the kind of material that Jeethu Joseph excels at. When his efforts are combined with those of cameraman Satheesh Kurup, composer Vishnu Shyam, and editor VS Vinayak, you get an experience that makes you lean forward in expectation.

The concept of a sleazy investigator is not new?recall Al Pacino's performance in Insomnia? Prithviraj in the Mumbai Police Department??Nonetheless, Kooman manages to excite with a unique, psychology-obsessed plot centred on a fascinating figure in the form of Giri, played by a superbly cast Asif Ali. Jeethu Joseph has never done anything like this before. It is, however, more similar to his 2013 film Memories in that it presents a nearly vivid portrait of its subject and his psychology. We're curious about Giri's transformation. Was there a tragic occurrence in his youth that contributed to these tendencies? Is this anything that just happened?

By the halfway mark, we have a good guess, which is reinforced by Anoop Menon's mental counsellor in a well-executed expository scene. And Asif comes to the occasion, providing Giri with the requisite edge, cynicism, and mischievous streak. So, everytime he goes through one of his'episodes,' we get a tactile sensation of all the repercussions of adrenaline flooding into his body, whether good or terrible.

Giri, who has yet to overcome his issues, has an opportunity to redeem himself as a result of the entire probe. Moral support is provided by Renji Panicker's newly retired supervisor, who effectively does for Suresh Gopi what MG Soman did in Commissioner. Giri is the type of cop who would almost certainly get slapped by Bharatchandran. While seeing Asif and Renji interact, we imagined an alternate universe in which MG Soman offered 'therapy' sessions to a police constable in Bharatchandran's unit instead of advising the latter why he should control his temper.

I really appreciated the film's self-awareness. In one scene, a character comments, "All of this sounds like a movie script," a reminder that you're watching a film and not one of those'realistic' thrillers that you shouldn't take too seriously. After all, it is a Jeethu Joseph flick.

The third act of Kooman recalls recent newsworthy events in Kerala. Given that it was written long before all of this, the picture has a prophetic feel. When we heard the news, we wondered, like one or more characters do in Kooman, "Do these things happen even in this day and age?" It appears that it does. But I wasn't a fan of the final fight, which felt like something we'd seen before, most likely in Indiana Jones flicks. Although the combat sequence is not exciting, everything that comes before it creates a sense of fear and anticipation.

KR Krishnakumar's most recent collaboration with Jeethu Joseph, The 12th Man (also his maiden literary effort), sparked lively arguments regarding human nature and its ability for wrongdoing and keeping secrets, even from one's loved ones. Kooman works your brain in the same way. Given what happens to Giri's career at the conclusion, we want to see him in the next Drishyam film.