Balaji Kumar made an impressive debut with Vidiyum Munn, in 2013. Ten years later, he is back with a film that at least looks impressive. Kolai – based on a true-life murder case – feels like a music video fused with a Vogue fashion shoot fused with the sensibilities of a noir-comic like Sin City. The look fits because the murder victim is a fashion model – and as she says, she is all about surfaces. The old song 'Paartha nyabagam illayo' is sung, and also used frequently in the jazz-inflected background score. And these songs come with surreal visuals: clouds that look like faces, and two lovers standing between trains roaring past them. Even the song that opens the film has a certain sensibility. It's the aria 'Nessun dorma'. It's almost a signal that the visuals are going to be equally operatic.
But the story/narrative struggles to live up to the visuals. It's the old formula of a retired detective (Vijay Antony, in a weird wig, as Vinayak) lured back into a case by a bright protégée (Ritika Singh). There's suicide, blackmail, a senior cop who wants to close the case ASAP, a boy with special needs, and a personal angle for Vinayak that involves an ailing daughter. All of this promises a heady mix of drama and excitement – even if the early scenes hint that mood is going to be prioritised over nail-biting tension. But by the interval point, I realised I was barely invested in the goings-on, and with scene after scene of people being interrogated, I was not holding my breath about who the killer is.
Part of the reason is the deliberate pacing, the stiff acting, and the distracting over-emphasis on a certain kind of staging. For instance, when a man who is being interrogated lights a cigarette, he gets freeze-framed while the detectives continue their conversation. This sort of thing feels gimmicky and disconnects us from the plot and the characters. The emotional angles, too, don't work – whether it's about lovers or parents. But more importantly, there is no sense of continuity, where one scene builds to the next, and that scene builds to the one after that. But then, even without these issues, the basic plot doesn't seem to have much meat. The reveal at the end is a bummer. This is supposed to be one of the most famous murder cases. Maybe reading about it will tell us what drew this filmmaker to make this film.