Ayyappanum Koshiyum [dir. Sachy]

If you've grown up watching mainstream Indian cinema, it's hard to escape the Revenge Drama (RD), a saga in which two or more participants are at constant loggerheads with each other. There are two main categories of RD's:

1. One of the characters is the protagonist, and the other is the villain. Here the conflict is an inevitable consequence of their innate natures and ends in violent comeuppance for the bad guy (after serious losses on the  hero's side).

2. Both are protagonists and their animosity is based on misunderstandings often engineered by a third party villain. Typically these are resolved just before the climax where they team up to lay the beatdown on the baddie.

Writer-director Sachy's Ayyappanum-Koshiyum (AK) is a bit of both. What it also is, through minute attention to detail and a beautifully constructed screenplay that organically builds upon moments instead of just appearing as an episodic series of encounters, is a canny reworking of all the cliches that accompany the archetype RD, giving us characters we feel invested in, sparring in a bout whose each round generates curiosity for the next one.

Round One begins when a vehicle driving through a forest road is stopped by a joint operation task force consisting of police, forest and excise officials. In a declared alcohol-free zone, the vehicle carrying a supply of liquor bottles and a heavily drunk passenger is a travesty, and when said passenger becomes violent, tempers flare on all sides. The situation quickly escalates to an arrest during which the passenger is slapped by the local police Station House Officer (both literally on the spot, and legally at the station). Thus we are introduced to our two opponents, the drunk Koshy (Prithviraj Sukumaran) and the SHO Ayyappan (Biju Menon).

In Round Two, the tables start to turn. One of the station officers, while going through Koshy's phone, realizes that he has big-shot connections. Ayappan is instructed by his superior to make his prisoner comfortable and considerately explain the seriousness of his offense. In one of the few openly contrived bits, Ayappan opens a bottle of the seized liquor to pour a drink for Koshy, surreptitiously captured by the latter on his phone. After serving out his short jail term, a vengeful Koshy supplies the video to the media as an example of the officer's misappropriation, setting fire to an otherwise unblemished career record and igniting an all-out conflagration of enemity between the two.

The rest of the film is a series of encounters between these men (and, in consequence, the people around them). What is interesting about AK is the focus it gives to the supporting cast and the milieu around its leading men. Ayyappan is popular in the town for his sympathy towards the oppressed caste locals and tribals, and they openly make their displeasure known to the mustache-as-status-twirling Koshy. Ayappan's tribal wife is no trembling violet constantly fearing for her family, but a firebrand activist that pushes him to go after his oppressor even at personal risk. On the other side, while Koshy is egoistic and short-tempered, he has his moments of clarity in which he realizes the stakes, and would rather be home with his family. But any attempt to backtrack is stymied by his domineering father, a retired gangster-politician who sees the avenging of his son's insult by Ayappan's destruction as a litmus test of Koshy's manhood. Toxic masculinity, anyone?

Every revenge movie thrives on the suspense generated by the moves and counter-moves of the antagonists. Sachy's script for AK excels in how it takes each such sequence to its limit, teasing out new facets that carry the tension to just short of breaking point. Once the battle begins there are no diversions and nothing is perfunctory. Salim-Javed in their prime would have been proud of turning out such work. Wisely, he keeps the direction low-key, the stylistic flourishes restricted primarily to a ritual costumed dance drama at the beginning and the all-out duel at the end. Propped up by an excellent support cast, Biju Menon and Prithviraj Sukumaran throw themselves into their parts with such gusto as to easily surmount any niggling inconsistencies in the characterization; whenever they face each other the screen is set ablaze. AK is a triumphant example of how even a standard genre can with intelligence and genuine love be transformed into a ferocious new experience.