Khalifa Movie Review:
Khalifa has a promising start: there's an inheritance involving the smuggling of gold, a family that has been shaped over decades by illegal activities and the repercussions thereof, and a hero who has to decide whether to remain clean or to take up where his ancestors had left off. However, somewhere along the way from the initial concept to the finished film, Khalifa settles on the most safe and conventional version of that story, and as a result director Vysakh's film ends up resembling one that we've seen a dozen times before, only with better visual appeal.
Director: Vysakh
Cast: Prithviraj Sukumaran, Neil Nithin Mukesh, Shammy Thilakan, Renji Panicker, Sanju Sivram, Malvika Sharma, Mohini
Prithviraj Sukumaran portrays Aamir Ali, a man who finds himself in the world that his family has spent two generations attempting to escape. The actor is in fine form here, full of energy and with a natural air of confidence. He looks great doing so as well, and in one version of the film this might have been sufficient. Jinu V Abraham's script never provides Prithviraj with enough material to go beyond mere posturing, and Vysakh resorts to slow motion too frequently so that even genuinely good moments begin to seem as though they are being overemphasised. Once the film has established its pattern of enemy, retaliation, a bigger enemy, bigger retaliation, the initial excitement has long since faded.
That's really Khalifa's core problem. Once Aamir enters the smuggling network, the film becomes entirely predictable, ticking through beats anyone who has sat through an action drama before could sketch out in advance. There are handsomely mounted sequences scattered along the way, and a couple of them genuinely land, but the screenplay rarely bothers giving the conflict any fresh emotional weight. Characters are outlined rather than written, and the film tends to paper over that thinness with emotional scenes that feel bolted on rather than earned.
The supporting actors are a mixed lot. Neil Nitin Mukesh, who is making his debut in Malayalam playing the role of the antagonist Harris Basheer, is strangely unimpressive as a man supposed to be the film's main threat. Although Shammi Thilakan does his best with the material he is given, the script doesn't help him at all. Sanju Sivaram is reliable in a role which asks very little of him, while Indrans bring more significance to their scenes than the script really warrants. Malvika Sharma's character Fiza is there almost entirely just as Aamir's wife, providing him with a sense of comfort and a feeling of being at home, while the other men have their own ambitions, rivalries and full storylines. The same can be said of Mohini, who plays Aamir's mother. Neither of them is given the opportunity to influence the plot or to exist independently of their connection with the hero. Coming back to the romance between Aamir and his wife, which is hurried through in just a few scenes, it has a dated atmosphere in a way that the rest of the film's polished presentation is striving to hide.
Technically, Khalifa has plenty going for it. The film acquires a shiny, international look thanks to Jomon T John's camera work, and the locations are effectively employed to convey a sense of scale. Jakes Bejoy's score performs mostly very well in moments featuring Prithviraj, although it tends to go over the top in other instances and its impact fails to last throughout the entire running time. Chaman Chakko's editing ensures that the action sequences remain tight, even when certain parts begin to feel too long.
As far as the action is concerned, the choreography is competent but never original. Ironically, the film's most exciting action scene doesn't even involve Prithviraj; it is a sequence in which a group of unnamed security guards manage to fend off a home invasion and this turns out to be Khalifa's most lively moment, which indicates that the film's imagination elsewhere has vanished. It's generally a sign that the film as a whole is underdeveloped when the best action sequence is one that features characters with no names.
The film tries to recover itself towards the end, mainly due to Mohanlal's much-anticipated appearance as Aamir's grandfather, Mambarakkal Ahmed Ali. This brief appearance was clearly intended to provide more than just a fleeting excitement. The styling appears sharp, although the similarity to the tail end look of Khureshi Ab'raam from Lucifer is uncanny. There is another cameo involving another popular star as well, one that is clearly modelled on the ending of a violent Hindi film.To its credit, Khalifa mostly ties up its own story rather than leaning entirely on the promise of what's to come, a trap several recent Malayalam films of this scale haven't managed to avoid.
Khalifa needed more than slick staging and Prithviraj's screen presence to become the film it wanted to be. It looks ambitious, plays confident and occasionally delivers, but underneath all that polish is a rather routine action drama.
