Churikatte: A crime thriller whose convincing cast steals the show

Once in a while comes a film with a perfect mix of clever script, intelligent direction and an effective cast. Churikatte is such a film. It's not entirely without flaws, but first time feature film director Raghu Shivamogga has carefully stitched his thoughts through Churikatte, and his characters effectively portray his thinking.

Director: Raghu Shivamogga
Cast: Praveen Tej, Prerana Kambam, Achyuth Kumar, Manohar Balaji, Sharath Lohithashwa

With action, suspense, love, friendship, duty, betrayal and a heavy dose of fear, the film tells the tale of Adi (Praveen Tej), who is just getting out of college and aspires to become a police constable. A situation arises when he encounters a strict police officer, Ravikanth (Achyuth Kumar) and a debate springs up surrounding superiority between a police officer and a constable. That leads to various turns of events between the two. Meanwhile, Adi falls in love with Kala (Prerana Kambam), a relative of  Seena (Manohar Balaji). Seena is involved with Anna (Sharath Lohitashwa), who is into timber mafia. The whole episode takes a twist when Ravikanth loses his gun, which later gets into other hands. This puts the police officer on the verge of being suspended.

Who is involved in the gun's theft, how the weapon entangles the lives of various characters, will Ravikanth get back his gun, and will Adi become a constable, forms the rest of the story.

Firstly, kudos to the director for putting together a great ensemble cast and making sure that nobody is wasted. Raghu has gone into depth, psychologically, with each character. With a weapon and nature forming the film’s backdrop, the score by Vasuki Vaibhav adds great value to this crime thriller. Vasuki has also come up with some good songs which are placed in the right situations.

Even though the story at times gets predictable, the emotions tide you over. For commercial reasons, the director has stretched the film with extended romance, songs, and a few minutes of extra violence. If he had avoided these, it would have made for a perfect thriller.

As for the actors, each one outdoes the other. Be it Achyuth Kumar, who has an extended role, or Balaji Manohar as the antagonist or Sharath Lohitashwa, who makes his presence felt on and off, they keep the audience glued. Praveen’s transformation from a lover boy to an angry youth is very well crafted and his efforts are visible. Newcomer Prerana Kambam comes out with a natural performance. The presence of certain actors in the supporting cast -- Manjunath Hegde, Dattanna, Kiran Naik and Pramod Shetty -- are especially noteworthy.

Overall, this crime thriller is definitely worth watching.