A howdunnit murder mystery with an interesting story turned into a script that needs more drafts. The direction with the use of camera and music tries to cover up any weakness in the script which kind of works by the second half of the movie. The over-the-top use of music reminded me of how some soap operas use plagiarised over-the-top action music from movies for no reason while showing close-ups of everyone in that scene. Even though this was only two hours, it could still have trimmed another twenty minutes out of it and it would've worked better. The lead actor wasn't particularly bad but besides his chiselled body and stoic posture, he couldn't really bring the audience to care for him as the lead. But all the other supporting cast did their roles really well. The moments where I first thought their acting was a bit over the top were justified to be like that once the mystery starts unravelling. The different demography of people in an office setup felt quite real for the current time and not in the stereotypical way that is usually seen in movies.
There are a lot of aspects that may feel silly but the film manages to be engaging especially in the second half, and I felt I could forgive a lot of its mistakes. The film ends with a promise of a sequel which I can only imagine to be much bigger in scope and I don't think that is really viable with the current setup.
On the whole, despite all its issues, it felt like a commendable attempt of an investigation thriller that tries something different in Malayalam, even though it clearly borrows a lot from Agatha Christie to CSI.
