Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar Movie Review: A taut thriller that rarely puts a foot wrong

Still life from Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar

Movie: Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar

Starring: Parvathy, Vijayaraghavan, Sidharth Bahrathan, Mathew Thomas, Vinay Forrt, Unnimaya Prasad Director: Shahad Plot: A police officer who joins the unit for compassionate reasons unexpectedly finds himself in a challenging situation Duration: 161 minutes

It may be one of cinema’s greatest tricks that it can twist the line of thinking about a person or incident with just the perspective it chooses to present, or the framing, editing choices, or backgrounds used with it. Reading a basic news report on Shahad’s Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar center crime incident might make one take a particular stance towards the culprits knowing the long history of this kind of crime in the country and the stories that can be concocted to save them.

However, the film frames the incident, the events leading up to it, its aftermath and the people involved in such a way that we never once wish that the culprits would be caught and punished. Of course we have Jeetha Joseph’s Drishyam (2013) in which we all stood together with those who committed the crime. The film also has several parallels with Drishyam, but the latter has very different interests and approach to crime.

For most of the film, we see the entire incident through the eyes of Aleena (Parvathy), who gets a job in the police department on compassionate grounds after her husband’s death, and through her tight-knit group of junior officers Divya (Unnimaya Prasad), Dasan (Sidharth Bharathan) and Sreenath (Mathew Thomas). Halfway through, we also see it from the point of view of Haris Meeran (Vijayaraghavan), a crime branch officer who we know to be one of the sharpest minds in the army. Despite our long-standing habit of wishing such invincible officers would crack tough cases, we wish he would lose this one.

Shahad, who made his debut with the memorable coming-of-age drama Prakashan Parakkatte (2022), takes his game up a few notches here, aided by a taut screenplay he co-wrote with PSSubramaniam and Vijesh Thottingal and superb work by cinematographer Roby Varghese Raj and music composer Mujeed Majeed. Although there are certain conveniences that the writers resort to, it doesn’t hinder what looks like an organically developing plot that manages to keep us on edge for most of the nearly three hours. The ways in which the film uses a book written by one of the characters to further the plot is perhaps one of the highlights.

Amid the tense encounters at the police station where much of the film takes place, the writers find room for some much-needed humor to lighten the tension. These are so cleverly sneaked in and often have an effect on the main plot that they don’t seem out of place in a thriller of this kind. Parvathy lends much-needed emotional depth to her character, which she plays with a convincing mix of the wariness of a relative newcomer to the force and the assurance of someone with a compelling reason to survive against the odds. Vijayaraghavan, on the other hand, oozes wonder as the investigator before whom even the perfect crime unravels.

Just when a number of police procedurals in Malayalam seemed to be following the same narrative beats, Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar injects some novelty into the genre.

Published – 14 Sep 2026 07:00 IST