On Kooman by Jeetu Joseph
I was talking to my colleague and friend, Yitzhak, and he suggested that I watch Kooman, directed by Jeetu Joseph, streaming on Amazon Prime Video. It has been around ten days since I watched a movie, and I was looking for the right one to resume the marathon this month.
Among Love Today, Qala, and Kooman, I chose Kooman. No reason as such except for Jeetu Joseph. I wasn’t even aware of Jeetu working on this project. KR Krishna Kumar wrote the story, screenplay, and dialogues, and Jeetu directed it.
Disclaimer: This blog post contains spoilers. Please watch the movie before reading this blog.
I have heard about Asif Ali’s films before, but I don’t remember watching his movies. This movie has two stories running throughout, and just before the interval, both converge with the gripping screenplay.
Coming to the characters, Asif plays Giri, a constable with a high ego who doesn’t relent until the people who hurt his ego are served with revenge. He’s close to the Circle Inspector of that place, who’s about to retire and doesn’t want the last case before his retirement to be sensational. Hence, they close the case as a suicide.
Since Giri is on a mission to seek revenge on people who hurt him, he doesn’t focus much on the case but sniffs the dead body and the place as a habit. After the retirement of his CI, a new strict officer is transferred there, and again Giri faces a clash with him.
It’s better that I don’t reveal the story as it is from here on. What starts as an activity to pose a challenge to the new CI becomes his addiction, the art of stealing!
Maniyan, a veteran thief played by Jaffar, is a well-written and performed character.
The scene where Maniyan teaches the tactics to Giri has intensifying music. The cinematography takes a slow moment and takes us closer to both of them, pulling us into the scene between the two men discussing thefts.
Maniyan is an honest, professional, and loyal person. Doesn’t cheat people but doesn’t want to get framed for someone else’s gain. He believes in Giri, and Giri laments when Maniyan is brutally hit by the police. Their bonding isn’t depicted with many emotional dialogues, but with the work they have with each other.
I love how the urge to go on theft is shown on screen. I sincerely wish I had that urge to write consistently 🙂
Although the second half of the film takes slight deviation, solving the protagonist’s problem and how he gets out of that, I liked it too. Until that point, the film progresses with grey shades of Giri, who doesn’t even help his mother with water when she’s coughing continuously but instead leaves to steal from a person who challenges the thief during the day.
To be honest, I was expecting Subbayya Swami (an astrologer known in the town) to perform black magic and kill people.
At the beginning of the film, at the funeral, when Subbayya is complaining about Karup Durai, one person gives Subbayya discontinuing the Vedic education in between as a reason for his lesser demand.
I connected the dots to the second half when Acharyan in Tiruchendur Matham mentions that a student left their matham with the old map that helps navigate to the temple where these black magic activities are performed. Okay, I thought I was involved too much in the movie 😥
And how can Jeetu end the movie without a twist? Here, it is a shocking revelation for me about Lakshmi. For audience ease, they show the scenes from Giri’s POV so that we make sense of the events that happened.
I think this movie could be divided into two stories, and yet both of them could have done decently well — one with the protagonist having ego issues and challenging his superiors only to get killed by his obsession with ego.
The second one is a love story of a policeman and a girl, the former getting cheated on and killed in human sacrifice by the latter.
I think I’m still appreciating the writer, Krishna Kumar, for coming up with such a gripping screenplay that doesn’t lessen its pace but intensifies as the movie progresses. The background score enhances the scenes, and the cinematography immerses us in the story, with the night scenes captured brilliantly.
One more thing to appreciate — is consistency in the character’s traits. Giri doesn’t give up his habit of theft. He continues doing so after solving the murder mysteries, unlike the morally conforming protagonists in other movies.
Overall, I liked the movie. After the movie, I wondered what would have happened if Giri’s mother had been murdered by the duo for human sacrifice. Okay, I still haven’t forgotten Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya; bye!
Until next time, with a short post about another movie…
