‘Prathichaya’ movie review: Not even a whitewash can contemporise this old-fashioned political thriller

Even as the Nivin Pauly starrer ‘Prathichaya’ tackles the complex game of image-making in politics, it often feels like the movie stuck in the past, delivering predictable twists and one-dimensional characters

One of the obvious shortcuts to write an engaging political drama is to draw inspiration in ample measure from real-life events. In the 1990s and early 2000s, screenwriters and filmmakers in Malayalam frequently incorporated thinly veiled references to political happenings of those days. Amid a hectic election season, director B Unnikrishnan brings back the essence of that era in Prathichaya, woven around political events that rocked Kerala over a decade ago.

With this story as the foundation, the filmmaker, who has also written the screenplay, fills the gaps with family drama and tales of corporate thuggery, both of which have political implications. The film imagines a political arena where everything depends on the image of the leaders, manufactured or otherwise, and much less on their policies or ideologies. So, the visual media also appears as a key player in the drama, as one of the purveyors of lies that destroy lives.

Careful mythmaking goes into creating the character of Chief Minister Varghese (Balachandra Menon), whose life incidents remind us of a real-life politician. He is not the squeaky, clean, and idealistic politician usually seen in such films. Rather, he has his share of grey areas and corrupt practices, notwithstanding which, he is portrayed as a righteous human who has equal amounts of pragmatism and cunning. A political scandal erupts, putting his reputation on the line, when his son John Varghese (Nivin Pauly), a technocrat who has been reluctant to join politics, enters the scene with a vow to restore the leader’s lost image.

Although marginally better than some of Unnikrishnan’s recent outings, Prathichaya is also saddled by the ills that have marred his films, be it the heady-handed drama or the needless exposition in several scenes. The operations of the corporate entity that seeks to control governance by targeting powerful politicians and John’s “clever” ways to build his image and respond to his adversaries have an air of familiarity and predictability about them. It does not shock or surprise you. The resolution of the issues seems far too easy and convenient. Some of the fictionalised elements injected into the real story are unintentionally funny, especially the CM’s son’s ideological and familial links to the opposition party.

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The only saving grace is perhaps Balachandra Menon’s controlled performance as the CM, delivering the dramatic lines with practised elegance. Nivin Pauly is evidently not in his comfort zone, as he is unable to bring the necessary gravitas to the role of a powerful political player. The characters are written without any element of surprise, most notably in the case of the corporate honcho played by Sharafudheen, who is clearly on the side of evil from the start.