kala malayalam movie review

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Kala Movie Review : A visual treat for those who love action movies

• Times Of India

Kala - Official Trailer

Kala - Official Teaser

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Refrain from posting comments that are obscene, defamatory or inflammatory, and do not indulge in personal attacks, name calling or inciting hatred against any community. Help us delete comments that do not follow these guidelines by marking them offensive . Let's work together to keep the conversation civil.

lakshmi narayana reddy 1024 days ago

Superb &hellip;I loved it &hellip; But its not everyone&rsquo;s movie.<br/>Unknown visitor from past karmas

Tara Vlogs 1027 days ago

worst movie ..nothing but torture for viewers. How can they drag whole film with just fighting between both.

trade 1030 days ago

No rating at all. Did not like the movie.&nbsp;

Garika Mounika 1032 days ago

Worst movie.. except the ending there is nothing interesting in this movie..too much of lag in 1st half...too much of violence in 2nd half

Soma Srikanthan 1033 days ago

waste of time. I am not sure how the critics are giving 3

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Though there is a lot of extreme action in the film, it ends on a different note and also offers the audience an intriguing message. The film can be a visual treat for those who love action movies.

Kala Movie Review: A visual treat for those who love action movies

• Times of India

Kala - Official Trailer

Kala - Official Teaser

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lakshmi narayana reddy 1024 days ago

Superb &hellip;I loved it &hellip; But its not everyone&rsquo;s movie.<br/>Unknown visitor from past karmas

Tara Vlogs 1027 days ago

worst movie ..nothing but torture for viewers. How can they drag whole film with just fighting between both.

trade 1030 days ago

No rating at all. Did not like the movie.&nbsp;

Garika Mounika 1032 days ago

Worst movie.. except the ending there is nothing interesting in this movie..too much of lag in 1st half...too much of violence in 2nd half

Soma Srikanthan 1033 days ago

waste of time. I am not sure how the critics are giving 3

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Munawar Faruqui's traditional looks for Eid al-Fitr 2024

10 animals that can survive in extreme hot weather conditions

​Surbhi Chandna radiates captivating allure ​

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Habits that are highly dangerous to health in the long run

Take cues from Sargun Mehta's collection of steal-worthy dresses

9 benefits of mint tea no one told you about

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• This film marks the first collaboration of uncle-nephew duo Anil Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor. Arjun is the son of Anil’s brother Boney Kapoor. Share
• This film marks the first collaboration of uncle-nephew duo Anil Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor. Arjun is the son of Anil’s brother Boney Kapoor.
• This is the second time Arjun Kapoor is playing a double role, the first being Aurangzeb (2013).
• The song ‘Yamma yamma’ from ‘Shaan’ is sampled in the song ‘Partywali Night' for the film.

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Kala review: Tovino Thomas delivers a bold, unapologetic carnival of violence

Kala review: no question that kala is a carnival of violence. but, look a little closer, and it offers more than just a bloody duel. it may even give you something worthwhile to think about..

In Kala, Shaji, played by an in-form Tovino Thomas , is a manifestation of toxic masculinity. It seems his strained relationship with his father has something to do with the way he expresses himself. He becomes a child craving affection and approval in front of his father Raveendran (Lal). In his father’s absence, he sort of becomes invincible and takes pride in his masculine features and privileges that come with being a man in a patriarchal setup. And his gigantic false ego, general irritability and the tendency for harsh behaviour is something passed down to him from his father. In the opening moments of the film, Shaji teaches his son about how to be a man, instead of giving him good values to live by. “Boys shouldn’t cry,” Shaji tells his son. “If you wanted it, you should have taken it forcibly from me.” There is no reason not to believe that it was a lesson Shaji received from his father Raveendran.

But, Kala is not just a comment on masculinity. This film is much more than that.

The menace of animal cruelty is a rather less discussed topic in mainstream movies. And it is prevalent in Kerala. Remember the recent viral video of a man tying a dog behind his scooter and dragging it along the road? Or before that, the visuals of a dog similarly dragged behind a car? It is safe to assume that these cases were the tip of the iceberg and numerous instances of animal abuse go unreported. The lack of stricter penalties for cruelty to animals lets the offenders get away easily. And in some cases, it even enables them to mete out pain to animals with impunity. But, what happens when a dog-lover decides to stand up to those who are cruel to dogs and seek vengeance on their behalf? A bloodbath.

Shaji willingly takes the life of an unsuspecting dog Bau. It is a dark country breed. And he is a close companion of a young boy, played by Sumesh Moor. Shaji’s urge to take out his frustration brings a violent end to the special relationship shared between the boy and the dog. Shaji perhaps believed that nobody would dare to stand up to him for a dog. Come on, it is not even a foreign breed. So he thinks Bau’s life is cheap. And that’s his biggest mistake.

Director Rohith VS and his co-writer Yadhu Pushpakaran cleverly subverts our expectations at each turn. From the get-go, the film plays with your mind. Rohith and his cameraman Akhil George also seem to have had a lot of fun on the sets, as is visible in the visuals. They have tried to extract all the pleasures of this medium through the camera. Akhil’s camera sweeps across Shaji’s sprawling estate, from the top, below, and in countless other angles. And why not? Showing mundane things from different angles is what cinema is meant for.

And the tone of the film also evokes very primal energy. You can almost smell blood and flesh that gets splashed on the screen. And Sumesh Moor’s performance, who is David to Tovino Thomas’ Goliath, is unnerving. You can feel his murderous rage.

No question that Kala is a carnival of violence. But, look a little closer, it offers more than just a bloody duel. It may even give you something worthwhile to think about.

Kala is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

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Kala movie review: Tovino Thomas starrer makes moments of violence feel like a poem

The success of the film, ultimately, is its stylisation of the moral tale which doesn’t feel empty the way it did with Jallikattu.

Language: Malayalam

One and a half hours into Kala , amidst a brutal scene — brutal, not grotesque — the text “Based on true events” appears on screen. 40 minutes are remaining. Why the disclaimer? Why now? To have it in the beginning would be to prime the audience into acknowledging the theme of the film before it even begins — that we live among violence, that we are the violence. To have it at the end would be to undermine the impact of the story with preoccupations of realism. The solution is the clumsy mid-film disclaimer that fulfils its promise — to let us know that we are vile. To get it out of the way. To make it clear that despite the story being about that, it really isn’t about it. There’s something more.

There is Shaji (Tovino Thomas), his deeply loving, but silently suffering wife Vidya (Divya Pillai), his son Appoos, his dog Blackie, and his disapproving father Raveendran (Lal). Shaji is deeply in love with his wife and himself, aware of the strands of grey lurking amidst the lush beard, rehearsing each muscle till it becomes taut and defined under his skin. In matters of money though, he’s less discerning, accumulating debt from family members, leaving failed businesses in his trail.

One afternoon as Vidya and Appoos travel to her parents’ house, and his father is off for a checkup, he mobilises a group of areca nut harvesters to steal bags of his father’s peppercorn harvest. The idea is to sell it and use that money to pay off the debts. The plot goes haywire when one of the men mobilised — unnamed throughout, played by Sumesh Moor — is there only to seek revenge from Shaji. Shaji had, in inebriated foolhardiness, killed his dog, Bau, with an explosive tucked inside a slab of meat.

But what does revenge mean?

Moor’s character wants to kill Shaji’s dog, a Mastiff. Bau was a local breed. (Look at the primal names too, descriptive of two aspects of the dog — one visual and one verbal) The hierarchy in the world of dogs finds articulation in the human realm. The dogs only love. A chase erupts where they tie, break, bruise, bang, skewer, whack, drag, twist, bite and scratch each other. The entire second hour of the film is this, edited with a sharp eye making sure brutal never becomes grotesque — even when an arm of cactus is screeches across Shaji’s back, even when Moor’s character is dragged across the floor, even when a sharp branch pierces Shaji’s flesh. The cut-to, and cut-from is a careful dance that makes moments of violence feel like a poem — stylised, sensual, elevated. Out of context, the pummels might even look pornographic, Shaji’s underwear barely holding on. Both Moor — teeth baring like fangs — and Thomas — with his surefooted gaze — bring a physicality to the fight that is raw, yes, but also desperate. You can sense the pulse weakening, the arms wavering, the eyes tiring till again they stand up and fight, and weaken, and fight, again and again. The greatest achievement of the film is this repetitive blanching of blood doesn’t feel repetitive. Every strike feels new. Every newness has its seductive appeal.

This editing is given an aesthetic, rousing lift with the help of the excessive and incisive sound design, that gives everything an intensity that reality just can’t elicit — the sidelong glances, the burning strings of tobacco, and the unblinking gaze filled with as much wonder as worry.

The success of the film, ultimately, is its stylisation of the moral tale which doesn’t feel empty the way it did with Jallikattu . The film leaves you with an intense confusion, having established how Shaji is both entitled and endearing, capable of love and violence in the same breath.

There is a wonderful moment when Shaji is staring his young son in the eye as he slams Moor’s character’s head on the bonnet of a car. In the beginning of the film when he steals the last dregs of Horlicks from Appoos who weeps in the annoying attention-seeking way children weep, he tells him that if he wanted the last dregs, he should have fought for it. To fight for what you think you deserve. It’s the kind of moral that easily lends itself to entitlement. Shaji models him on that threshold. So, at the end when you see him, there is a distaste for his proclivity towards society, but a deep love for his disposition towards his loved ones. It makes his dismissal an uneasy idea.

Moreover the world building doesn’t feel uncontrolled. It is contained, to one Areca plantation that surrounds the house filled with lushness that is tactile. The slippery wild mushrooms, the laborious red ants, the languorous spiders holding onto silken webs, the legless slithering of earthworms, grunting wild pigs, nervous dogs, voyeuristic lizards, the hood of a protective snake, a bulbous leech that is squeezed of its borrowed blood, even the CGI butterflies, this world is so dense with life, framed obviously under the designer canopy of foliage. It is hard to take one’s eyes away, even as the story slackens, even as the whacks become more and more questionable, even as the moral becomes a forgotten footnote in this violent ballet.

Rating: 4 (out of 5 stars)

Kala is streaming on Amazon Prime Video India.

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Kala (I) (2021)

• User Reviews
• Same concept as John wick's, nothing original here.
• What are those mindless slow motion shots ?
• Can conclude the movie in 30 mins
• As pretentious as a movie can get
• Why do actors agree to make movies without a proper story.
• Such a bore.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Kala

In this Kala film, Tovino Thomas , Lal played the primary leads.

The Kala was released in theaters on 25 Mar 2021.

The Kala was directed by Rohith VS

Movies like Level Cross , Written & Directed by God , Lovely and others in a similar vein had the same genre but quite different stories.

The Kala had a runtime of 130 minutes.

The soundtracks and background music were composed by Dawn Vincent for the movie Kala.

The cinematography for Kala was shot by Akhil George .

The movie Kala belonged to the Adventure, genre.

Kala User Review

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