‘I Am Kathalan’ movie review: Fast-paced cyber crime thriller ends up an average fare

A still from ‘I Am Kathalan’

If there exists a parallel world where losers are guaranteed to find salvation, Girish A.D’s characters would probably be the rulers of that world. Down and out protagonists have been a common factor in all his films till date, be it Thanneer Mathan Dinangal or Super Sharanya or Premalu. His latest outing I Am Kathalan is no different, but just as always, he brings the same underlying theme in a different packaging.

Cyber crime is the shiny wrapper that he uses this time around. Only that, we are seeing the film mostly from the perspective of the hacker, Vishnu (Naslen), who has completed his engineering course but has a load of back papers to pass. His lack of ambition and string of failures do not sit well with his girlfriend Shilpa (Anishma Anilkumar), who has joined her father (Dileesh Pothan)‘s finance firm as its IT head. When things go wrong between the couple, it triggers Vishnu’s criminal tendencies.

Vishnu’s personality as someone who is not averse to using his technical knowledge for devious means is established early on, when he attempts a phishing attack on a female classmate’s social media account for his friend. He is clearly a push away from attempting something on a larger scale. Hiding behind the technical sophistry is a guy seething with anger at a girl who has quite a few valid reasons for dumping him.

Girish and writer Sajin Cherukayil pare down the hacking sequences to its bare essentials, making them accessible. Humour, which is a common element of all of Girish’s films, is also minimal, probably considering the nature of the plot. One of the funnier bits is meant to break stereotypes in the portrayal of hackers, complete with a hoodie and backpack, in some Malayalam films.

With a less than two-hour runtime, tightly packed with one event after another, the film runs briskly for most parts. But it fails to deliver anything more than what it shows in the first hour, always circling back to another iteration of the hacker carrying out his act and the victims updating their security system. The entry of an ethical hacker (Lijomol Jose), a character who also gets a stereotype-breaking portrayal, introduces some amount of thrill into the proceedings. Some elements of the writing, like how the stress-buster pillow mouse that Vishnu designs is used at various points in the story, are interesting.

Though one of the characters does call Vishnu a criminal, the film is ambivalent about how it should portray him. At times, it slips into a sympathetic tone, especially in a scene involving Vishnu’s father. This ambivalence also restricts the makers from going all out against the negative-shaded protagonist in the end, preventing an impactful climax. Despite being an engaging watch, I Am Kathalan hits a little below the mark compared to Girish’s previous outings.