Kolla(Tamil,Netflix)
Rating: **
Rajisha Vijayan and Priya Prakash Warrier(the Oru Adaar Love ‘wink’ girl) play Annie and Shilpa, two anti-heroines who open a beauty parlour in a small city. The cityfolks are kind to them. Fate ,alas is not.
The screenplay(written by Tamil-Malayalam cinema’s most celebrated writing duo Sanjay-Bobby) has the seeds of a powerful morality tale on how contrary to belief,crime does pay and if the criminals are women they have a lot more scope to get away with the crime.
While the idea must have shone on the script level, the execution is far from flawless. The story inches forward piece by piece , with the plot going from one brainwave to another with all the enthusiasm of a dentist extracting a rotten tooth.There is just no sense of joy in telling the story as two seemingly hapless woman take an entire town for a ride.
Unlike other female-hero films, this one allows the male characters to be more than glorified props. Vinay Forrt as the cop on duty trying to solve a robbery case is stern and smirky in turns. He knows the two girls are more bank robbers and less beauticians. But where is the proof?
This is where the plot thickens and sickens. Why is it so hard to gather proof of the ladies’ guilt?All the cop had to do was find that drilled hole in the wall connecting the beauty parlour to the bank.
Also the involvement of Stephen(Alencier Ley Lopez) in the crime is hard to swallow, even if he was a congenital crook and even if Annie’s father was also a thief. To accept a genetic continuity in crime is very convenient for the screenwriters. But it is way too naïve a way out of a question that begs an answer about all life of crime: what drives seemingly decent people on the wrong path ?
In Netflix’s celebrated series Delhi Crime2 , Tillotama Shome explained why she chose a life of crime. Here in Kolla,Annie and Shilpa offer no explanation. Their unlawful actions are never rationalized or justified. Whether that is good or bad, we don’t know. What we do know is there is no joy in watching a crime drama where the writing stays stoically neutral.
As a fan of Bobby-Sanjay’s screenplays I have to regrettably admit Kolla is their weakest effort to date. Women robbing a bank sounds exciting in theory.How could director Suraj Varma let it go so wrong in execution?
