Unmadham review: Lijomol Jose and Kunchacko Boban lift an uneven thriller

Unmadham (Malayalam)There is something inherently cinematic about the search for truth. Writer Shahi Kabir understands that when a well-meaning protagonist in a police uniform embodies that search, intrigue runs high. An earnest cop, a cursed case file, and lizards from the netherworld build a mysterious premise in the writer’s latest outing, Unmadham. But somewhere along the way, the plot mistakes ambiguity for depth, settling for quick answers where more questions may linger.The plot follows Shelly (Kunchacko Boban), a policeman who aspires to be a screenwriter. His wife, Saumya (Lijomol Jose), runs the home with a small job at a factory unit, while he takes a year to try his luck in cinema. Soon enough, the tribulations of making ends meet force him to go back to his police uniform. A punishment transfer, a long-forgotten case file that is believed to bring bad luck, and a lucrative movie offer later, Shelly sets out to dig up the truth behind a young woman’s death.Everything makes sense until the narrative indulges way too much in Shelly’s mental health. Being in the force does take a toll on most police personnel, especially those in the lower ranks, like Shelly. This critique has been a recurring theme in Shahi’s scripts. However, in its attempt to separate the trauma of the job from the job's bottlenecks, Unmadham loses its coherence. What could have been a tighter, more packed thriller gets bogged down with the weight of its own ideas.Moreover, it is impossible to ignore the relentless saviourship aspect of thrillers, specifically police procedurals. But most films in the genre place a male hero at the helm of uncovering the truth behind a victim’s tragic passing, only to make him a hero all over again. The victim, almost always, is a woman.In Unmadham, Shelly even says that it is the spirit of a dead woman who is crying for justice through him. There is integrity in his empathy, and his stubborn refusal to be complacent with a law-and-order system hardened to suffering. If one were to ask whether such characterisation itself is problematic, it may not be. But given the rise of hypermasculine thriller films and the general machismo embodied by the police force in real life, it is jarring to watch one more cop playing guardian to a woman. The scenes that retell the crime, with the woman being subjected to violence, then look like emotional bait. Shahi Kabir’s last film, Officer On Duty, was disturbingly high on violence. In his fan favourite Ela Veezha Poonchira, there was a thread of infidelity, and a primal manifestation of male violence surrounding that. The scale only seems to be going upwards for him. Thankfully, though, Unmadham does not insist that the victim was also sexually abused–the lowest-hanging fruit in the thriller genre’s tree, to create shock value.Kunchacko Boban holds Shelly up through and through. His chaos has a certain sensitivity to it, holding the viewer off at an arm’s distance from giving up on him. Lijomol Jose delivers a brilliant, nuanced performance as Shelly’s practical wife who often grounds him, but also lets him go when he needs it.Director Kiran Das, a well-known editor himself, makes sure that the technical departments of the film do not slacken. Unmadham is an intriguing thriller that contrasts the hero’s fatigue of being a cop against his inherent sense of justice. As jarring as it may be to watch another cop tell a woman’s story, there is an undeniable earnestness to Kunchacko and Lijomol’s performances that makes it hard to write the film off.Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.