North 24 Kaatham (2013)

The way this movie completely lost me in the last half hour is truly legendary. I mean, you would have expected something better from a movie featuring three great performers (Nedumudi Venu, Swathi Reddy and Fahadh Faasil) but nah (special mention to my man Sreenath Bhasi, the real scene-stealer always). Better never to expect anything only, even from a movie that starts off so strongly. 

I guess the major reason why I felt let down (apart from the disservice done to the actors) was because of how mental illness and health were treated. I genuinely thought there was going to be some healthy discourse on the topic, but it was tediously run-of-the-mill, and like I said, a great disservice to how good FaFa was as Harikrishnan. I also felt like Swathi and Venu sir were grossly under-utilised: if they weren't gonna give Harikrishnan a full-fledged arc, the least they could have done was to cover it up with the other two solid actors. And the supporting cast... they had Geetha AND Sreenath Bhasi, both of them were impactful as hell, and yet... where is the justice in this world??

In conclusion, if nothing else, my silver lining from North 24 Kaatham is the realisation that it's time to stan Mr. Bhasi. Also, why did they not fully explore the "kaatham" bit?? Why was it such a throw-away aspect?? Why does nothing make sense anymore??

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