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Rorschach Movie Review : A layered psychological-philosophical thriller

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Sanju Pb 100 403 days ago

What a movie

Sunil Nambiar 32 461 days ago

It's out and out copy of Anil kapoor's and Harshwardhan's web series "THAR"....I seriously amused that, no one Talking on that part might be coz, it's in Hindi and Marwari language..!! but This particular malayalam film isn't a novelty thing. It's complate copy...!!

User RAGHU 113 519 days ago

A Mind Bending Nio-noir Psychological Thriller.

Sylent Screamer 748 519 days ago

Amazing movie , Mammoka carry the movie on his shoulder along with all the supporting characters of the movie, the direction , storytelling, camera work and location was worth watching

sahadtp 519 days ago

Its like an foriegn movie there have an improvement in malayalam industry and i like it

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[Review] ‘Rorschach’ is a Subtle and Engaging Thriller

While Found-Footage is certainly a sub-genre worthy of respect, with quite a few memorable entries over the past few decades, it’s also true that giving any random filmmaker the power to produce his own (usually horror) movie with minimum production requirements is a bit risky. However, this formula has graced us with new gems like Paranormal Activity in the past, and now continues to provide us with unexpected scares through films like C.A. Smith’s Rorschach .

Starring Ricky Lee Barnes and Ross Compton as “Ricky” and “Ross”, a duo of skeptic paranormal investigators, Rorschach chronicles the team’s efforts as they deal with strange occurrences in a seemingly normal suburban home. Contacted by Jamy (Jamy Gillespie), a single mother worried that the paranormal activity in her household may soon harm her daughter Ashlynn, Ricky and Ross begin to document their experiences with the family.

The film is presented to us as the edited collection of all the footage recorded by the investigators, which is both a blessing and a curse. In a way, this allows for clever presentation of the strange events surrounding the house, while still maintaining a high level of credibility (which is one of the strongest aspects of the film). On the other hand, knowing from the start that Ricky and Ross survive to edit and present their footage as a feature film somewhat hinders the hard-earned suspense that permeates the rest of the movie.

Despite this, Rorschach is an incredibly engaging picture that utilizes this extremely believable and realistic premise to its fullest extent. At times, it seems as though the amateurish, documentary-style filmmaking would feel right at home as an episode of one of the many ghost-hunting shows that plague cable television. This even extends to the subtle nature of most of the movie’s scares, which reward viewer patience and attention to detail, while not resorting to traditional jump scares that might ruin Smith’s carefully constructed realism.

Rorschach certainly isn’t for everyone, however, as the film’s deliberate pacing places it closer to movies like Ti West’s The Innkeepers , rather than similar found footage films like Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity franchise. This results in a divisive experience that some moviegoers may find boring instead of immersive. I personally didn’t mind the slower nature of the experience, as piecing together the film’s implied backstory through the many clues and red herrings scattered across the picture was entertaining enough for me.

Ultimately, Rorschach is a remarkable example of low-budget horror done right, as it plays with viewer expectations and presents us with a realistic yet frightening view of the paranormal. The ending might feel slightly unsatisfying to some, as there are no real conclusions, only hints of a larger story going on in the background, but it makes sense within the film’s premise. While I would have liked to see more of the supernatural throughout the story, Rorschach is still one hell of a fun ride if you have the patience to reach the end.

Rorschach will be available for free on Youtube for a limited time, so you can check it out below!

Born Brazilian, raised Canadian, Luiz is a writer and Film student that spends most of his time watching movies and subsequently complaining about them.

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Home » Review » Rorschach movie review: Mammootty’s slick psychological revenge thriller makes for an engaging experience »

Rorschach movie review: Mammootty’s slick psychological revenge thriller makes for an engaging experience

The makers of Mammootty's Rorschach seemed to have made no compromise when it comes to the production values of the film and that helps even when the plot strays a bit, like the mind of its protagonist

• Sanjith Sidhardhan

Last Updated: 08.59 AM, Oct 09, 2022

Story: UK citizen Luke Antony drags himself to the police station in a village and claims that his pregnant wife has been missing after his car met with an accident. What follows is a few weeks of futile search with him being the only person who believes that she is still alive. Luke decides to stay on and his path crosses with another family, whose members might have a connection with his past and his current ordeal, a cop, who is out to seek the truth behind Luke’s presence, and a youngster, who doesn’t believe a word Luke says.

Review: A scene in director Nisam Basheer’s sophomore venture has the protagonist Luke Antony (Mammootty) listening to the plight of a woman, who has to take care of her ailing husband. She complains that her husband had never given her peace after their marriage and continues to push her to the edge. Luke asks her about considering divorce, to which she replies that that was never an option for financially-backward women, who are considered a burden by the families. Luke then suggests why not let him get married to her daughter. In a split second, she entertains this and approaches her daughter, a widow, with the request of a stranger who she has met for the first time. This is probably one of the many dramatic sequences where the writing shines in a movie, which sets the bar high in terms of its storytelling, visuals, sound and performances – all making for a riveting and novel theatrical experience in recent times.

Nisam keeps a tight grip on the proceedings of the film, which begins with a mystery and then slowly reveals its cards. Sure, by the end of the first half, audiences can figure out the why and who in Luke’s past, but it’s about how he goes about his revenge and core purpose that makes it entertaining. The reasons for each action here are about the mind – be it the manipulation within a family, the quest for something more or just lack of control over thoughts. The greatest challenge for the writer, Samir Abdul, and the filmmaker here was to showcase this on screen and also make the audience connect the subtle dots, and Rorschach succeeds this past without a blot or blemish.

Huge credit to this goes to the casting department as well as some superlative performances. Mammootty, as Luke Antony, brings the intensity as well as keeps the mystery behind his purpose alive. It’s a character that needed to be consistent and the star once again shows why he is a master at playing conflicted protagonists. 

Also read: Exclusive! Mammootty’s Rorschach demands the audience’s undivided attention to be engaging: Nisam Basheer  

While a riveting performance is expected from Mammootty every time, the surprise packages in Rorschach are Bindu Panicker, Jagadeesh and Kottayam Nazir. All three veteran actors put on an acting workshop on restrained performances while showing the two ends of the emotional spectrum. Bindu Panicker, in particular, has some great moments. Actors Sharafudheen, Grace Antony and Sanju Sivram do their parts well in taking the story forward. In fact, all the characters in Rorschach are grey – and within that some of them serve as moral compasses.

Considering that Luke, a stranger with a haunted past, is often grappling with his mind and most of his scenes are set inside a house that is half-constructed and half in ruins, the movie is a visual experience. It takes the audience for a ride right from the first scene. Nimish Ravi’s frames are cool and grey, mirroring its deceptive characters and the village. Midhun Mukundan’s English tracks and thrilling background score also adds a different layer to the movie, which stands out due to its tone and compelling storytelling. The makers of the movie seemed to have made no compromise when it comes to the production values of the film and that helps even when the plot strays a bit, like the mind of its protagonist.

Verdict: This year seems to be the megastar’s as he looks set to continue his winning run and that too by being part of new-age thrillers that bank on setting a high benchmark. Rorschach is slick and smart, and is technically superlative. It’s a must watch in theatres just for the unique experience and great performances from each member of the cast.

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'Rorschach' movie review: Mammootty captivates in a refreshingly twisted gothic revenge thriller

A few months before the release of Rorschach , I had heard little whispers of its plot from a couple of industry insiders. I found the concept interesting, and I was curious not only to see how director Nisam Basheer -- who made his debut with the polarising Kettyolaanu Ente Malakha -- would pull it off but also how Kerala audiences would react to it. Now, I'm not someone who looks at the initial reactions on social media before writing a review -- because I don't want anyone else's opinions colouring my own -- so I'm not aware of others' Rorschach experience. I'm only sure of mine: fulfilling, not only because it tickled the film buff in me that loves an unconventional genre fusion but also because the makers have pulled it off without making it seem too inaccessible. Oh, and I promise not to spill any spoilers.

What is Rorschach? Well, many things. Off the top of my head -- part revenge thriller, part gothic ghost story, part dysfunctional family drama, part dark comedy, and part crime noir... I might find more on a revisit. Anyway, it's incredible how all of these elements come well together in this film; but look beneath the veneer of genre-blending, and we see three different families with ideological and temperamental differences and an astonishing capacity for evil. By the time we get to the finale, most of these characters evolve into people they were not at the story's beginning.

In the opening scene, when Mammootty's Luke Antony walks into a police station and reports being in an accident and his wife missing, we and every character who comes into contact with him believe him. But we'll soon learn there is a much larger story behind it. Luke isn't hasty to tell it, and neither is the film. It wants to go at the same pace as him. It throws at us disparate images that at first glance seem disjointed, but if you're patient and attentive enough -- don't look at the phone and complain later -- everything will begin to make sense. You'll see the significance of some juxtaposition choices or why some scenes were so brief and sparse with the revelation of information.

I mentioned earlier about Rorschach being a portrait of families. The film gives us more information about them than it does about Luke, and I don't mean this in a negative way. The title also makes sense once the end credits roll. Luke was on a mission, but his arrival also brought out the distasteful facets in some individuals. In that sense, its behaviour is similar to that of a Western. You know, the story of that lone mysterious stranger arriving at a small town to shake things up?

In this film, we learn about a family with a devilish streak running through them for generations. They carry it around like a curse. At one point, a mother declares that her children are her carbon copies and they are capable of everything she is. As this mother, Bindu Panicker gives us a profoundly unsettling performance that eerily recalls Jacki Weaver from the Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom. And there is Jagadish as a quietly functioning police constable whose true intentions, once evident, gives his character a whole new dimension. It takes a while for him to say something, but when he does, he makes you more curious. It's the most impressive I've seen the actor in a long time.

The film's storytelling, too, reflects the idiosyncratic nature of its protagonist. Rorschach reveals information about Luke in an incremental fashion. Sometimes the film catches us off guard by simultaneously running past and present events from his life. There are films where this approach -- where no title card informs us which event is past or present -- failed miserably, but in Rorschach , it works perfectly. It's a classic case of relying more on visual storytelling than exposition. That said, the film has its share of moments where the characters say things that guide us, but at the same time, the script is careful not to say it all at once and ruin the fun. Just as he does with every character he meets, Luke taunts us until it's time for him to tell us what happened in his life and his plans.

The only information we know about Luke initially is that something tragic has befallen him. And then we ask: Who is he? How can he fight so well? What's his interest in two particular families? Why does he want to live in a haunted house? Why is he using someone's skull as an ashtray? We get the answers, all in good time, but it also doesn't forget to keep some things open-ended. That's where the fun is, right?

Speaking of fun, for a film about unlikeable characters and tragic events, Rorschach is not overwhelmingly depressing -- at least, not for me. It seems to relish its dark energy and revel in its gothic environment, just like its leading man. And Mammootty plays Luke with a measure of mischief, creepiness, and daring that you begin to remember some moments from Vidheyan , Thaniyavarthanam , Bhoothakkandi , or Munnariyippu .

Cinematographer Nimish Ravi, who has already proved himself adept at working comfortably with dark subjects ( Luca, Kurup ), once again demonstrates his supreme abilities in Rorschach with a work that's remarkably not repetitive. He bathes characters in enough shadows and amber to make them seem like they are Satan's children. Blacks and greys dominate the colour palette, starting with Luke's luxury car. His residence resembles more of a grim mausoleum than a home -- like a sort of 'limbo' in which 'the man in black' can pronounce his judgement.

I also found the choice of using English songs in the soundtrack -- by Midhun Mukundan, who recently worked on the brilliant Kannada gangster drama Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana -- refreshing. The makers' attempt at ignoring the usual tendency of having music "relatable" for Malayali/Indian audiences is admirable. Perhaps this choice suggests a character trait of Luke. What if these are his favourite songs? After all, we are in his world, aren't we?

Director: Nisam Basheer

Casting: Mammootty, Grace Antony, Bindu Panicker, Jagadish, Sharafudheen

Rating: 4/5 stars

(This story originally appeared on Cinema Express)

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A big kudos to Sameer Abdul who came up with an interesting screenplay based on a psychological test

Rorschach Movie Review: A layered psychological-philosophical thriller

• Times of India

Rorschach - Official Teaser

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Sanju Pb 100 403 days ago

What a movie

Sunil Nambiar 32 461 days ago

It's out and out copy of Anil kapoor's and Harshwardhan's web series "THAR"....I seriously amused that, no one Talking on that part might be coz, it's in Hindi and Marwari language..!! but This particular malayalam film isn't a novelty thing. It's complate copy...!!

User RAGHU 113 519 days ago

A Mind Bending Nio-noir Psychological Thriller.

Sylent Screamer 748 519 days ago

Amazing movie , Mammoka carry the movie on his shoulder along with all the supporting characters of the movie, the direction , storytelling, camera work and location was worth watching

sahadtp 519 days ago

Its like an foriegn movie there have an improvement in malayalam industry and i like it

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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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Rorschach movie review: Revenge redefined with Mammootty v Grace Antony v Bindhu Panicker leading the charge

How do you punish a dead person who ruined your happiness? Rorschach challenges our notion of life itself with a tale of an unprecedented, seething desire for payback.

Language: Malayalam

Cast: Mammootty, Grace Antony, Bindhu Panicker, Jagadish, Sanju Sivram, Kottayam Nazeer, Sharafudheen, Ira Noor, Cameo: Asif Ali

Director: Nisam Basheer

Star rating: 3.5/5

There’s something not quite right about Luke Antony ( Mammootty ). In the opening chapter of Rorschach , when this wealthy NRI walks into a rural police station to report his wife Sofiya’s disappearance, the situation smells dubious. Not surprisingly, Luke’s claim that they were in a car accident and she was gone by the time he regained consciousness, does not sit well with at least one perceptive observer, the policeman Ashraf (Jagadish).

When Luke refuses to leave the place till Sofiya is found, speculation about his intentions runs rife among the villagers. His indefatigable quest for his missing spouse turns out to be nothing that anyone could have predicted – not Ashraf, not the local factory owner Sujatha ( Grace Antony ), nor her mother-in-law Seetha (Bindhu Panicker). Rorschach – written by Sameer Abdul and directed by Nisam Basheer – is unpredictable in more ways than anyone could guess.

The spark for the events in this film is an individual who destroys another’s happiness, but does not live to suffer a vendetta. How do you punish the dead? Rorschach redefines revenge and challenges our definition of life itself as it tells a tale of excruciating loss and an iron will deployed to satisfy an unprecedented, seething desire for payback.

Rorschach takes its name from the Rorschach Test that – to explain it with a layperson’s understanding – assesses a subject’s psychology based on their perceptions of visual patterns created by inkblots. The title refers as much to Luke’s tortured and possibly broken mind as to his notions of living, dying and when exactly a human being is truly finished, and our own perception of who is who, who is dead and who alive by the end of this saga.

Though Rorschach is eerie and evokes curiosity from the beginning, I took a while to get fully immersed in it, partly because I was torn between finding the pace tedious and intriguing, partly because the music and sound design sometimes get overbearing, and partly because the use of English for the song accompanying the narrative is a misfit in this rustic Kerala setting. There is a tendency in a certain kind of Malayalam cinema to feature English and Hindi where they are out of place, thus detracting from a film’s rootedness. The awe in which some Malayalam filmmakers hold these two languages is one undesirable extreme of a spectrum at the other extreme of which is the Hindi supremacism that enables most Hindi filmmakers to ignore India’s language diversity in all locations, including when they set their plots outside the Hindi belt. Thankfully, Rorschach ’s lyricist does better than the writers of the cringeworthy English lines sung in the likes of 12th Man and Love Action Drama , and the tunes, their occasional unnecessary volume notwithstanding, match the mood of the film.

Besides, Rorschach is as unrelenting as Luke, and is designed to chip away at a viewer’s skepticism bit by bit until she succumbs to its lure. I can pinpoint the moment when my antennae shot up and I got hooked. It came about 40 minutes into the 150 minutes running time when I realised that what seemed like a sound artificially stuffed into the film’s audioscape was in fact an actual memory from Luke’s past. This revelation comes in a flashback slipped so seamlessly into the narrative that it made me sit up.

Rorschach swoops from the past to the present, into Luke’s imagination and out into the real world, with a smoothness that does the screenplay proud and should put Kiran Das in contention for several Best Editing trophies when the next awards season rolls around. Equally laudable is Nimish Ravi’s cinematography capturing the interiors of gloomy homes, troubled faces, the giant mountains and lonely forests where Rorschach roams, and the production design team’s construction of an intimidatingly spacious, half-built home.

There are few joys in life as great as the joy of watching Mammootty submit himself fully to a script. The star who risked his macho reputation by playing a hesitant policeman in Khalidh Rahman’s Unda (2019) and starred as a despicable casteist bigot in Ratheena P.T’s Puzhu earlier this year, here takes up a grey character. Mammukka’s weakness for the past couple of decades has been an unwillingness to acknowledge his real-life age on screen. In Rorschach though, both camera and makeup are employed to let fatigue show on his skin and gracefully portray Luke as an elderly man – not the 71 that Mammootty is in real life, but certainly much older than the pretending-to-be-young boyfriend of young women that he has been in many of his low-brow commercial films. Mammukka lets tiredness seep into every line of Luke’s frame, while his eyes are by turns vacant, weary, sorrowful, determined and burning with anger.

Predictably though, an artiste who looks young enough to be his (grand)daughter acts as Sofiya. I have a dream, that one day, the director of a Mammootty starrer will recognise the ageism that leads to the casting of only 20/30-somethings as his sister, lover and wife, will abjure the patriarchal, damaging view that women of Mammootty’s age are unworthy of these roles, and will put her/his foot down on seeing the absurdity in the resultant pairings. I have a dream…

As it happens, the snatches of conversations between Sofiya and Luke are the only ordinarily written dialogues in Rorschach .

That apart, it is a measure of Mammootty’s respect for the writing and the director of Rorschach that, despite being the megastar of this project and its producer, he does not monopolise screen time here. Every member of the cast is outstanding, and half a dozen are given plenty of space with Mammootty nowhere in the frame. In fact, though Rorschach is Mammukka’s film, it belongs too to the formidable performances by Grace Antony as a gritty woman trying to figure Luke out and Bindhu Panicker as a mother who will go to any lengths to preserve her family’s social standing. The film is nothing without their Sujatha and Seetha, both roles written with a keen eye for detail.

The treatment of women in Rorschach is a vast improvement on Nisam’s earlier directorial work, Kettiyollaanu Ente Maalakha (2019). That film was a milestone in the sense that it recognised the existence of marital rape and clearly described it as a crime, which is rare not just in Indian cinema but in the overall public discourse, but it messed up by giving the man’s journey primacy over the woman in a storyline that called for both to be given equal room.

Malayalam cinema has already given us a couple of solid revenge dramas in 2022, Puzhu and Innale Vare . Rorschach is different from them in the way it resists genre boundaries with its paranormal elements and existential questions in a psychological thriller. This film teases the brain from the moment Luke enters that police station. It is not scary in a conventional way, yet presents a terrifying vision of the depths of a vengeful, probably fractured psyche. The director is so confident of the written material he’s working with, that he does not speed up matters at any point to heighten the excitement. Instead he moulds Rorschach into a slow burn that initially tested my patience but paid incremental dividends as each minute went by.

Early in Rorschach when a search party walks across a rocky river bed, Nimish Ravi’s camera pulls out, rising higher and higher until those human beings are no longer visible. The image mirrors the theme of the film: if I can’t see you, does that mean you do not exist? Conversely, like the human faces we imagine when we look up at the moon, the people we spot staring at us from mosaic tiles or the figures we perceive in ink stains, just because I see you, does it mean you do exist? These questions linger long after the credits roll away, much like Rorschach itself, which is not playing on a screen before me as I write this but is still playing in my head.

Rating: 3.5 (out of 5 stars)  

This review was first published when Rorschach was released in theatres. The film is now streaming on Disney+Hotstar.

Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial

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'Rorschach' review: Mammootty's performance only saving grace in a below-average thriller

Nisam Basheer's film is confusing at multiple levels

A strange man comes to a village with a revengeful mind. The basic plot of Mammootty-starrer Rorschach is something that has been explored in world cinema multiple times. But a difference here is that the protagonist’s revenge is towards a dead man.

Rorschach is a confusing movie at multiple levels. It does not really fit completely into the boxes of either a psychological thriller or a horror thriller. There are some supernatural elements in the film. But the narrative did not help this writer to understand whether the presence of those elements can be attributed to the protagonist’s psychiatric issues. In other words, can the protagonist be seen as a person suffering from schizophrenia? The film does not answer it.

What the film’s title has to do with its plot or narrative is another question that came to the mind of this writer after watching the FDFS. Rorschach is a projective psychological test used by some psychologists to examine a subject's personality traits and emotional functioning. This writer failed to capture the connection this test (or the title) has with the storyline.

Mammootty is an actor who is not hesitant to take dark-shaded characters. In Rorschach , his character is literally in the ‘dark’ for almost the entire stretch of the film. There is injudicious use of dark colours. The colour scheme followed by Rorshchach is in such a way that every frame’s colour ends up feeling the same as every other frame.

Directed by Nisam Basheer—whose debut film was the problematic Kettyolaanu Ente Malakha —and written by Sameer Abdul, the scenarist of Iblis and Adventures of Omanakuttan , Rorschach felt like a wasted opportunity. The script offers some interesting characters, but it fails to apply ‘common sense’ at multiple places while exploring their actions and crimes. It leaves multiple loose ends in its narrative.

Even then, the film should be lauded for some fine performances. Mammootty excels as creepy, eerie Luke Antony. Senior artists like Bindu Panickar, Kottayam Nazeer and Jagadeesh also deliver great acting. Grace Antony and Sharafudheen should be appreciated for their controlled performance.

A major issue Rorschach faces is that its narrative does not help the audience to empathise with Luke Antony or the tragedy that he faced in Dubai. It also takes the approach of hiding the antagonist—Dileep— behind a mask, even though there have been multiple close-up shots that reveal who is the actor who played the role of Dileep. The cinematographer and director could have thought of a more imaginative way to portray the antagonist. The film fails to give depth to this particular character, around whom the entire narrative revolves around. It won’t be an overstatement to say that Dileep is one of the badly written characters in the script.

There are some stylised action sequences in the film. It also tries to explore mind games that people play. However, Rorschach lacks the pace demanded by its storyline (this writer had some occasional yawns while watching it). Overall the film was a below-average, boring experience for this writer.

Movie: Rorschach

Director: Nisam Basheer

Cast: Mammootty, Bindu Panickar, Kottayam Nazeer, Grace Antony, Sharafudheen, Jagadeesh

Rating: 2/5

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2022, Mystery & thriller, 2h 30m

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Rorschach   photos.

Luke Anthony has a mysterious past and sets on a mission to seek revenge from someone who has destroyed him deeply.

Genre: Mystery & thriller

Original Language: Malayalam

Director: Nissam Basheer

Producer: Mammootty

Writer: Sameer Abdul

Runtime: 2h 30m

Production Co: Mammootty Kampany, Wayfarer Films

Cast & Crew

Luke Antony

Bindu Panikkar

Sharafudheen

Grace Antony

Kottayam Nazeer

Sanju Sivram

Nissam Basheer

Sameer Abdul

Screenwriter

Nimish Ravi

Cinematographer

Film Editing

Midhun Mukundan

Original Music

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Rorschach (2015)

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