Nizhal aka Shadow [dir. Appu N. Bhattathiri]

Nizhal starts with the depiction of a high-speed automobile accident on a rain-swept road. The mishap is seen from the point of view of a bird on a tree. This begins one's misgivings with the film. The makers thought they had such a brilliant idea in this perspective that they persisted with it despite having an egregiously goofy CGI bird that takes all attention away from the incident.

But the outline that follows shows good promise. A magistrate John Baby (Kunchako Boban) is involved in the accident, which is also revealed to be instigated by him. When he comes out of hospital he is wearing a nose guard shaped like a superhero-mask, and sees dark clouds and rain showers even on perfectly sunny days. Gloomy John then hears of a schoolboy who out of the blue comes up with a murder story during a class activity. The unnaturally specific details provided in the story intrigue the magistrate who wants to meet with the boy (a spunky and charming Izin Hash). This of course means getting past the resistance of his protective single mom (Nayantara, looking always like she had dressed up for a photoshoot and was impatiently waiting for it to begin). By this interaction John Baby discovers the threads of more than one crime. The bigger question of course is, how is the boy getting intimate details of dark deeds from a distant past that no one around him knows about?

Intriguing, isn't it? For some while, Nizhal does feel like it could go to interesting spaces - one scene, where the ex-flame of a long-ago murdered man uncovered by John Baby suggests that the spirit of the dead man has communicated the details of the crime, is superbly done in its understatement. But there is also a lot of (ha!) dead air in the script. I understand the desire to not be just a "point A to point B" narrative, but the detours and pauses need to be interesting. Here scenes are unnecessarily broken up and subplots go nowhere (a routine with a bumbling snoop following the magistrate is so pointless it could have been easily snipped off). There are numerous asides to John Baby's magisterial job, probably meant to suggest how his daily life goes on despite these events, but they mostly show him looking distractedly into space or at his phone. There's an even more egregious still view of Nayantara 's character staring at (I kid you not) the desktop wallpaper of her Mac. This is not my idea of interesting visual drama. The lead characters are one-dimensional; even John Baby apart from his "rain visions" doesn't have a real arc. The eventual resolution when it comes is unforgivably lame - It reminds me of the numerous Satyajit Ray myster/horror short stories that ended with the protagonist waking from a dream because the writer couldn't figure out how to take the story ahead.

A mystery adventure can work two ways - either be plausible or be entertaining. Some great movies do both. Nizhal, interesting bits notwithstanding, is not satisfying on either count. It does not earn its runtime and there's a distinct feeling of being let down at the end. This is but a pale shadow of the movie it could have been.