When we first meet Kolai's Vinayak Veeradiyar (Vijay Antony), he is wearing a fedora, a long suit, and is walking past his accomplishments showcased in the form of newspaper cuttings. He is almost like a Sherlock Holmes meets JJ aka Jake Gittes from Chinatown. We are told he has the acumen of Holmes and we realise he also has the disposition of a tragic Gittes. Vinayak’s slow gait, his measured dialogue delivery, his restrained body language, and his deductions with a pinch of theatrics are almost perfect for the unravelling of a whodunit. Even the setting of the film, which is an alternate reality… almost like an Upside-down version of Chennai called Madras is interesting. Having the murdered girl narrate her story through voiceovers has an element of intrigue. Even the cliches, including multiple suspects, each with a clear motive, being questioned one after the other, are on point. However, the biggest crime of the film is that none of these elements come together to deliver a coherent and engaging murder mystery.
Director: Balaji K Kumar
Cast: Vijay Antony, Meenakshi Choudhary, Radikaa Sarathkumar, Ritika Singh
Kolai begins with the ‘kolai’ of a singer-model, who is found dead inside her house. An unnecessarily creepy top cop Mansoor Ali Khan (John Vijay) assigns this high-profile case to rookie cop Sandhya (Ritika Singh). It is her first case. Why is she assigned the case in the first place if she is a rookie and this is apparently super high profile? When the murder mystery gets murkier, they ask her to enlist the help of senior cop Vinayak, who is on a self-imposed sabbatical. It is a classic case of a brooding senior helping out the over-enthusiastic junior cop. We saw it recently in Por Thozhil too, and Kolai is perfectly set up for following similar beats. But director Balaji K Kumar has a different set of plans, and we follow the filmmaker’s ambition to treat Kolai as a slow-burn neo-noir film. The intentions cannot be blamed, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Even when the case unravels, and we are fed details like how the house was locked from the inside, there are no signs of forced entry, where and how did the killer/killers escape, what is the motive, etc… we are more distracted by the narrative style rather than being egged on to the edge of our seats. While Girishh Gopalakrishnan’s background score does take us to the point, the happenings on screen slump us right back. The flamboyant editing perfectly suits the idea of the film, but is let down by the writing that fails to stay on the right side of the line between indulgence and intemperance. None of the suspects really get to do anything, and we are left to be content with the sleuthing skills of Vinayak, and honestly, after a point, even this doesn’t cut it. Yes, the writing allows us to be interested in his detecting abilities, but soon enough, the film does resort to coincidences, Freudian slips, and plain luck. But it is interesting to see a cop who prefers brain to brawn. There is not a single scene where he has to do anything but deduce, and it is a welcome detour from our regular cop/detective films.
The whole Holmes-Watson vibe between Vinayak and Sandhya too doesn’t work at all, and she is just used as an exposition dump or to listen to her senior cop unabashedly spew sexist remarks without registering even a semblance of her discomfort. Things are no better for Vinayak either, whose tragic backstory evokes no sympathy. And the murder suspects have it worse. Barring a briefly interesting role for Radikaa Sarathkumar, and Murli Sharma getting to creep out people like there is no tomorrow, there is very little for the supporting cast to ride on. And I'll tiptoe around the last act and the final reveal not just to avoid giving spoilers but also because it was a disappointment.
There are flashes of something interesting in the narrative, and certain choices too have potential. Be it the idea of an alternate city or the way Vinayak's thought trains are depicted on screen, these ideas are detours from a film that seems to be falling flat with every passing scene. While these detours might not be much, it manages to briefly inject a sense of adrenaline into the proceedings before it all crumbles once again. There is an Interstellar hat-tip that is executed poorly. There is a hallucination angle to the narrative that is superficial at best. A lot of ideas are present but are not fleshed out long enough for us to throw our weight behind the intentions. As the curtains are drawn on Kolai, one can't help but wonder about the various what-ifs, would-haves and could-haves. Did we just miss out on our own Knives Out and Benoit Blanc moment? But then, I tell myself, "Forget it... This is Madras Town."
