Kattalan Review: Loud, Violent And Dull

Kattalan tries to roar like Marco with blood-soaked violence and mass swagger, but ends up as a noisy, identity-less actioner with little bite, claims Sreeju Sudhakaran.

Never a fan of Marco, but one thing I cannot deny is that movie had audacity.

The Malayalam hit was audacious in the way it kept pushing the boundaries of onscreen brutality without pausing to ask whether those limits needed crossing at all. That very recklessness worked for gorehounds who did not mind watching relentless violence inflicted on men, women, children and animals alike.

Kattalan, set in the same universe as Marco, proudly wears its identity of a violent actioner like its predecessor. In fact, the very first scene features a villain stabbing a policeman straight through the heart.

Yet, the violence here feels comparatively restrained. Also, less savage, less shocking, and unfortunately, less memorable.

Funnily, Kattalan’s most ‘audacious’ moment arrives not in its action scenes, but in its no-smoking disclaimer, where, for the first time, I heard a child reading the warning aloud.

Why?

Like most things in the film, there is no coherent explanation, and the more you think about it, the sillier it becomes. Why would a kid be reading a warning meant for adults in a film that is strictly for adults? And who exactly is this child anyway?

What’s The Plot of Kattalan?

Kattalan revolves around a cartel involved in elephant poaching and ivory smuggling, based around in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The ruthless Maaran (Sunil) runs the operation from Aanakolli, a forest hamlet where he keeps the locals and migrants trapped under his control, exploiting and brutalising them at will.

His rival Eddie (Kabir Duhan Singh) constantly attempts to snatch away his ivory consignments while plotting his downfall. Eddie also enjoys the backing of the local SP Nelson Nadar (Harishankar Narayanan), who happens to be his brother-in-law.

Fearing that a powerful figure named Cabral (a star cameo revealed in one of the post-credit scenes) may eventually do business with Eddie, Maaran hires Antony (Antony Varghese), a peddler known not just for stealing consignments, but also for his supposed brilliance in transporting them without fail.

Uninspired Storytelling and Character Development

The man who recommends Antony to Maaran is George Peter (Siddique), elder brother of Marco from the previous film and the first obvious sign that Kattalan exists within the same universe.

Of course, just as Marco barely made sense as a spin-off to Mikhael, where George and Marco behaved like entirely different characters from their earlier incarnations, it is pointless expecting much consistency from this cinematic universe. Jagadish, who played one of the antagonists in Marco, appears here as an entirely different character named Ali, one of Maaran’s oppressed workers.

Leaving aside its place in a franchise that itself seems unsure of where it is headed, especially after Unni Mukundan’s exit, Kattalan is simply a dull, identity-less action film that lumbers from one fight scene to another without rhythm, coherence or even technical finesse.

Its core plot feels like a mash-up of KGF and Pushpa, topped off with a climax borrowed from Karan Arjun (villagers helping the hero will overpower the villains). Even one of the post-credit scenes feels lifted from the stinger of a famous Tamil blockbuster, interestingly connected to the ‘actor’ making the cameo appearance here.

But writer-director Paul George never seems to understand why those films connected with audiences in the first place.

Whether you like them or not, KGF and Pushpa succeeded because they built compelling mythologies around their protagonists, giving them emotional weight and memorable backstories. Merely stuffing the frame with growling villains, macho slow-motion shots and a random item song is not enough.

Here, not a single character is convincingly written. Everyone is trapped inside a screenplay that merely shuffles them from one action sequence to the next before disposing of them in an utterly forgettable fashion. Even the protagonist remains frustratingly vague, with muddled intentions and shaky motivations.

Early on, Ali reveals that he knows why Antony has arrived in Aanakolli. Do not ask how he knows this or why he instantly trusts a complete stranger. The screenplay certainly does not care to answer it, nor explores Antony’s supposed intentions.

The inconsistencies seep into nearly every aspect of the writing. In one scene, Ali laments that his child is suffering because of his sins as a tusker killer working under Maaran. In the very next scene, he is happily participating in another elephant hunt. Kattalan shows absolutely no moral complexity regarding the slaughter of elephants, regardless of who commits it.

Even Antony’s supposed intelligence fluctuates according to convenience. A mildly engaging sequence in the first half establishes his foresight and strategic thinking while transporting an ivory consignment to Rameswaram. Yet, once he rebels against Maaran in the second half, Antony suddenly becomes incapable of anticipating the obvious consequences of his actions on the village. The violence that follows exists solely to make the villains look cartoonishly evil while giving the hero a convenient moral justification for revenge.

Dull Action Sequences and Loud Score

Which brings me to the much hyped action scenes.

Since Kattalan proudly markets itself as part of the Marco universe, comparisons are inevitable, especially with Shareef Mohammed, director of Marco, serving as producer here.

Whatever one thinks of Marco, its action choreography at least had slickness and energy to stand apart from others in the genre.

Kattalan, despite assembling a sizeable technical team, lacks even a single genuinely memorable set piece. Most of the fights feel aggressively over-edited and excessively stylised without developing any distinct personality. Merely splashing blood and gore across the screen does not automatically make action impactful.

The only action sequences that kind of stands out are the ones involving the elephants. 

Kattalan had also generated huge pre-release buzz for bringing in Kannada composer Ravi Basrur, who also worked on Marco. He must have come in with a hefty price tag so the makers seem determined to squeeze every rupee’s worth out of him by drowning nearly every frame in his deafening background music, whether the scenes require it or not.

One-Note Performances

The performances do little to elevate the material either.

Antony Varghese, usually a capable actor, appears surprisingly lifeless here, especially in the monotonous delivery of his punch dialogues. Of course, it is difficult to appear massy while uttering lines like, ‘Ningalkku ithu haram aanengil, enikku ithu halal aanu,’ but still…

Sunil plays a one-note villain designed to be hated from the very first frame, with zero nuance attached to his cruelty.

Kabir Duhan Singh, Parth Tiwari, and Harishankar Narayanan exist in the film merely as filler antagonists to pad out an already thin screenplay, whose characters are offed in lacklustre manners. 

Jagadish at least manages to inject some semblance of sincerity into his performance, though standing out is hardly difficult for a veteran actor like him when most of the cast struggles with dialogue delivery and expressions.

Dushara Vijayan appears only briefly in the second half during the film’s listless Jaffna detour, functioning purely as a convenient plot device for the hero.

Singer Hannan Shah and Alappuzha Gymkhana actor Shon Joy appear as Antony’s sidekicks, but their presence is so random that I genuinely cannot recall them having a single line of dialogue.

In comparison, Aavesham actor Hipster at least gets a couple of lines, even if his role remains equally inconsequential. 

In Conclusion…

During the end credits, there is a behind-the-scenes montage showing the making of the film. In one amusing moment, a drunk man casually snatches a cigarette from Pepe’s hand and takes a puff himself.

It is genuinely funny, and I honestly wish that same irreverent energy had found its way into the actual film. Because what we get instead is a dreary action drama that has very little wildness, personality or madness to offer.

Which is rather ironic for a film called Kattalan.