Few filmmakers are as adept at juggling completely different genres including comedy, thrillers, romantic flicks and even new-generation experiments as V K Prakash- the man behind movies as varied as ‘Gulumaal’,’Freaky Chakra’ and ‘Beautiful’. One of the busiest directors in the Malayalam industry, VKP’s third outing this year, ‘Silence’, is also his maiden venture with Mammootty. The actor once again dons the garb of a lawyer, playing Aravind Chandrasekhar, who was appointed as a Judge in the Bengaluru Court.
The movie initially revolves around Aravind, his family consisting of wife Sangeetha (Pallavi Purohit) and two children. Aravind’s friend Neil George (Anup Menon) is a top official with the Police Department. While the celebrations are on to mark Aravind’s appointment as the Judge, he gets a phone call from a ‘private number’.
The caller confuses Aravind by telling him that he would like to play a game of hide-and-seek with him, and soon starts to chase the protagonist.
When things become personal, Aravind tries to turn the game on its head and chases the elusive character back, with Neil’s help. Their quest takes them to the early years of Aravind’s career, upon which the mystery starts to unravel.
Scriptwriter Y V Rajesh, who had already pocketed a huge hit through ‘Romans’ earlier this year, however, does not trace any experimental path in ‘Silence’, especially in the second half, as the film traverses a regular, beaten path. Lacking intelligent twists or turn of events in the climax, the movie would have been ended as a pretty ordinary affair, but thanks to the efforts of the director, editor Mahesh Narayanan and cameraman Manoj Khatoi, it manages to hold the viewer and can be labelled a watchable thriller. Ratheesh Vega’s background score is in sync with the setting for most part, albeit at times, it gets jarring.
Mammootty is certainly a delight to watch as Aravind, the experienced campaigner bringing out the nuances of the character with aplomb and a subtlety that matches the tension the sequences demand. Meanwhile, Anoop Menon plays perfect foil to the master performer while Pallavi Purohit does justice to her role.
Apart from the experienced actors, assigning some key roles to relatively newcomers is one of the disappointments of the film.
However, setting the flaws aside, ‘Silence’ is a reasonably competent reworking of the suspense thriller formula.