To say if Chaaver would’ve worked better as a short story, novella, or feature-length movie would require the necessary patience to complete it because it’s quite a slog. I, for one, have concluded that the former option seemed more practical. Chaaver is an idea that might’ve sounded good on paper. Perhaps Tinu Pappachan, whose first two films —Swathandryam Ardharathriyil and Ajagajantharam—were exhilarating big-screen experiences, saw the potential for creating a Sam Peckinpah-esque audio-visual thrill ride out of Joy Mathew’s flimsy script. Because, after Amal Neerad, Tinu is the only one capable of emulating the style of Peckinpah in Malayalam. As in Amal’s Varathan, a Kerala-based adaptation of Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, Tinu gets an excuse to stage a home invasion-triggered slo-mo gunplay in Chaaver. But the film neither lacks the bite and the cathartic pleasures of Varathan nor is it as entertaining as Peckinpah’s best films.
One assumes Tinu’s primary intention was to make a survival thriller. In the pre-release interviews, the filmmaker suggested that Chaaver differs from his previous films. Well, sort of, in that this is his first film that finds time to... take a break—multiple times. I’m not sure that approach works for someone like Tinu because he is a filmmaker whose strengths lie in relentless, fast-paced action. His talents seem ill-fit for a film where the on-the-run characters are either sitting around for long periods awaiting instructions or moving in their jeep—again and again and again. It gets monotonous after a point because there’s not much happening other than these characters constantly pondering the possibility of them getting caught. But why should we care whether these remorseless killers who just butchered a young man get caught or not? Why should we root for their escape? Is it because Kunchacko Boban plays the gang leader?
Now, it’s admirable that the actor is presently seeking out such unglamorous and amoral characters— a far cry from the kind of roles that he used to do earlier in his career—but, including Kunchacko’s Ashokan, everyone in Chaaver is a one-dimensional character with only their costumes and overall appearance to suggest an air of shadiness. So, when Chaaver doesn’t work as a survival thriller, does it work as something else? Well, maybe, but only to a minuscule extent.
If one were to look at Chaaver as a small exercise for film students to ask them if there is at least one character whose survival matters more than that of the others, they are likely to come up with an answer. Chaaver does have one such character, but this particular ability of the film—to show us who we are actually supposed to feel sympathy for —makes itself apparent too late, and even if we want this particular character to survive their predicament, there is another problem: not knowing enough about them. Again, I ask: Why should it matter to us whether this character gets away or not? It matters to the film’s creators but not so much to us.
Look, there is no denying that Tinu is a filmmaker with a commendable visual flair. However, his obsession with good-looking frames often reaches self-indulgent, near-fetishistic heights more in Chaaver than in his other films. And I find it awkward to say this for something that chose to adopt a contemplative approach, unlike the delirious rollercoaster-like energy of his previous work. Of course, some visual choices are interesting, like having a lightbulb go off when a character is about to breathe his last; the involvement of certain reptiles, mammals and birds for possible analogies; or that picture of author Sanjayan (one of my favourite humorists) to signify the film’s Thalassery setting. Interestingly, these images not only serve to distract us from the so-called ‘twist’ in the third act but also the film’s storytelling shortcomings. Does Lijo Jose Pellissery really think this is Tinu’s best film?
Yes, this is also a ‘different’ Tinu Pappachan film in that it tries to make a political statement. But I strongly felt Sibi Malayil’s Kotthu—starring Asif Ali and Roshan Mathew —expressed these statements better, and in impressively accessible ways, than Chaaver. That film dealt with flesh-and-blood characters, but any attempts from Chaaver to humanise its characters towards its closing moments end up falling flat. The best scene in the film has one dying character asking another where he is from, and the latter points to all the scars on his body, saying where he got each one from. These are all different regions in Kerala, and I found it to be a brilliant touch—to suggest that this man lost parts of his soul in those places. If only the rest of the film had more imaginative flourishes such as these...
Film: Chaaver
Director: Tinu Pappachan
Cast: Kunchacko Boban, Manoj KU, Arjun Ashokan, Deepak Parambol
Rating: 2.5/5 stars