What a waste of my time!!!

Dreadfully Boring

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

The movie starts with an argument followed immediately by the cause of it up until the interval. The movie revolves around Siddharth, a short-tempered fellow, and his calm and loving wife, Anjali, who has to stand his every tantrum. The movie, shortly after the beginning sequence, shows Siddharth as a feisty child, transitioning into a violent teenager and finally into an adult who at least tries to control his temper. Just before the interval, Siddharth has the worst day ever as he embarrasses his wife and himself as he abuses a co-worker at a party and accidentally abuses him father-in-law when he gets home. Just before the interval, Siddharth gets into a bit of a joust in his car with a truck driver as the driver does an illegal overtake endangering Siddharth and Anjali. This is a rapid change in pace from the earlier part of the movie which only contained instances of Siddharth's outrage and not such full-flung anger. After the interval, the movie speeds up even more as they go to a roadside restaurant run by goons. Siddharth gets into more trouble due to him lacking patience and something about not being able to pay for a unsatisfactory meal. This is followed by a another vehicle jousting sequence and a fight scene involving Siddharth. The movie ends on a high as goons gets what's coming to them and Siddharth promising to try harder to be more patient and calm but not before long, he gets into another fight but this time for justifiable reasons. Before watching the movie, I read in some reviews that Sai's acting in the movie is beyond poor and I can see why they wrote this. Her facial expressions are authentic enough but her dialogue presentation is unconvincing and emotionless. Her accent is also a bit heavy which makes me wonder if her character, Anjali, had a Tamil background to cover up her accent. Dulquer displayed a very realistic and fantastic performance. The movie as a whole is well directed with minor pace issues. The script is interesting but the music is forgettable. Overall, worth a watch for the interesting story and Dulquer's performance.

Sameer Thahir charmed us last time with his brilliant road film, Neelakasham Pachakadal Chuvanna Bhoomi (2013) which was, although not entirely original, a novel feature in Mollywood. And in 2016 we have another fresh attempt by him which talks about a notorious human feeling through a thriller template.Siddharth (Salmaan) is a short-tempered young man who lives with his wife Anjali (Pallavi) after being in love since college. Albeit through a cranky start with their respective families and careers, the duo manage to salvage the situation, paving a neat road to a peaceful matrimony. Anjali knows that her good-looking husband has anger issues, but still takes the plunge hoping that he might change. Unfortunately, her hopes are not as audacious as they seem, as everyone finds out the hard way.Siddharth's anger creates a cavity in the relationship with his wife, which is further aggravated and tested by times as they set out to the latter's parents' place through crooked roads of the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. While the first act shows the slow formation of this cavity and Anjali's harried attempts at maintenance, in the second half, the duo are apprehended, due to an entirely coincidental turn of events, by a group of rowdies. Which the makers want us to believe is due to one of the protagonists' feeling, which is also the central theme of the film: rage.I could agree that rage created the cavity between them, and that rage, that unflinching, uncontrollable feeling due to things petty, got them apprehended in the second act, but the story arcs that grow themselves out of the main story is purely inconsequential. And the conclusion, which is related to one of these story arcs, makes the whole bunch of grapes a little sour.The biggest problem, if one hypothesizes, is that there is no solution in sight. But that is not what the makers wanted to convey. What they want to convey is how uncontrollable anger can wreak havoc in one's life and alienate him/her from his/her family and friends, inching ultimately to self-destruction. But hold on, while the story gives you a basic, superficial understanding of what the previous statement means, the conclusion is abrupt and equivocal (of the wrong kind). And when that is sampled with a gaping plot hole, things get murkier.Dulquer Salmaan and Sai Pallavi are terrific with their respective roles. The chemistry between them also played out gorgeously, which helps the audience empathize with them later in the film. However, Pallavi's weird accent played me off a couple times, despite of the fact that her character is not a Malayali. The supporting cast don't much do anything, except Soubin Shahir, who continues to make us laugh. Chemban Vinod Jose a fairly good job; makes him look like he was cut out for the role.The camera work is brilliant, and Thahir has worked well with his actors in brining out the best in them. However, Rajesh Gopinadhan should have spent few more days in the writer's room to carve the climax out in a better way. What the film finally closes to is that rage, after all, is necessary. While that is a debatable topic, taking on the offensive with the theme made me and my sister turn our heads and shrug.Having said that, it is a palatable film which never bores. The drama and action are top-notch. Special mention to the thirty minutes post interval for really keeping the audience on the edge. Ignore the songs and the hypothesis, and you will enjoy this feature that is free from the usual ingredients.BOTTOM LINE: Sameer Thahir's Kali may not be as good as his debut, but the story that he tells using his talented actors is one not to be missed. Worth the DVD rent.Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES

I had not seen the trailer of this movie, and since I was spoiled by disappointing masala movies of similar style of names, I thought this movie was going to be some kind of masala action movie with no real story. But with in few minutes into this movie, I knew I was totally wrong about my prejudice and I was happy about it.The story revolves around an incident that happened to the young married couple while on their trip after a huge fight between them. Dulquer plays the role of Sidharth who is really short tempered and has anger management issues. His wife, Anjali, played by Sai Pallavi, tries her best to help him manage his anger. They live pretty good loving life except the occasional little fights between them caused mostly because of Sid's short-temperness. Anyway, one day Sidharth's anger got out of his hand and one thing lead to another, which ended up having Anjali leave to her parents home. I hate to spoil rest of the movie here but I can guarantee it is one of the best and longest most intense sequence in malayalam movie ever. Many elements of the movie can be related to almost all households. One scene that comes to my mind is when Sidharth asks Anjali drive the car and how her poor driving causes anger. So relatable to me. All casts and crew of this movie did an excellent job making this movie. Chemban Vinod & Vinayakan deserves mention for their villain characters. Soubin Shahir's character was not only pivotal but also added some humor in the movie. Special appreciation to Rajesh Gopinadhan & Sameer Thahir for the prefect ending of the movie.I guess the moral of the story would be:1) Being able to control anger is necessary skill. 2) Driving is an important skill to have in today's world regardless of gender.

Dear Sameer Tahir, the fight scene at the start of Kali was very impressive. It was very imagistic and quite well edited with visuals of the angry cat interwoven into the fight sequence. I liked the way you used the close ups of Vinayakan's face to emphasize the ugliness of violence. The film started with a bang. But it soon slipped into mediocrity because the character study of Dulqer Salman's short-tempered and misanthropic character was a failure. In the film's first half, we are fed too many scenes underlining his short temperedness. But there is nothing about his world view. Is he a misanthrope? Does he hate the human race (his reaction to Soubin Sahir's character and customers at his workplace indicated that people irritated him)? Or is it something that happened in his childhood (there was only a brief flashback of him being bullied as a kid)? Nothing. It was a great opportunity to say something about the state of humanity and enforced relationships at the work place. Frankly Sameer, I was ready to go to sleep because the scenes from the banal middle class life of the protagonist and his wife were completely unimaginative. The scenes came across as ones that would be written for the sort of movie that Jayaram would act in. But the well shot truck chase scene just before the interval woke me up. The next thirty minutes with the encounter at the roadside food stall were riveting. The second half of the film was clearly better than the rather dull first half. The two villains - Chemban Vinod Jose and Vinayakan were terrific. Chemban must be one of the best actor's working in Malayalam cinema at the moment. Dulqer Salman's performance was respectable. Him and Nivin Pauly have improved so much in their last few films. Sai Pallavi was above average. You could have been more discreet with the use of background score. Sometimes, silences help a lot. Best Regards, Pimpin. (6/10)