‘Khalifa’ review: A mostly dull gangster drama heavily reliant on a rousing last-minute superstar cameo to revive it

Nothing wrong with doing a template mass-action film as long as something innovative is attempted while keeping the larger-than-life soul intact. “Khalifa” sees filmmaker Vysakh reaching for Shaji Kailas/Joshiy-style ambition, but lacks the fire of legends’ early blockbusters. Even those legends have been unable to conjure their old magic in their recent projects.

The production company of the film’s screenwriter is named ‘A Jinu Abraham Innovation’, but the only time the film shows tiny sparks of ‘innovation’ is in the depiction of the ‘innovative’ ways in which gold is smuggled through Customs and the manner in which some father-son relationships play out.

Subterfuge is the order of the day. The film relies on this right from the beginning — a supposed act of betrayal — and then cuts back between past and present to give us a sense of why someone got into this business. Even portions in the present occasionally opt for a ‘past/present’ switch to reveal certain surprises. That’s not exactly ‘innovative’; we have seen other filmmakers do the gotcha moment in the same way before.

“Khalifa” tries to mine some emotion out of the central father-son relationship portrayed by Prithviraj Sukumaran’s Aamir Ali and Renji Panicker’s Younous, the current patriarch of the Mambrackal family. The latter happens to be the son of the great don Ahmed Ali. Not a spoiler, since everyone knows Mohanlal is bound to show up as the grandfather at some point in the film. The question is whether he’ll show up in the past or present. (By the way, Renji Panicker is just a year younger to Mohanlal. I'm assuming the grandfather was very young when he had this son.) The makers manage to retain the surprise element till the end. In fact, that’s the only part that gave me a solid high. Everything else in the film is just a combination of moderate highs and tiresome lows.

Prithviraj almost convincingly plays Aamir Ali at different stages of his life to relay the fact that neither he nor his father intended to get into crime. Younous conveys on more than one occasion that he had no plans to follow his father’s footsteps. Perhaps he wouldn’t be suffering this much had he opted for a crime life. It’s ironic, because the bad guys seem to be doing better here than the ones leading an honest, untainted existence. Aamir getting into crime is inevitable, because, after all, we have seen countless gangster films in which the son reluctantly opts for the other side to seek justice for his father. Thankfully, the film forgoes a couple of predictable beats instead of proving the audience correct. 

However, that doesn’t automatically make this a better film, because many characters, including Prithviraj’s, fail to rise above surface-level pleasures. You are not thinking beyond how stylish the character looks. What about their personalities? It aims to be a modern-day version of the Mohanlal classic “Irupathaam Noottandu” (which “Lucifer” emulated in a good way), but we have to remember that Mohanlal used to play such characters without much embellishment. He simply had to be present. 

The villains lack any striking qualities and are merely a rehash of the kind we’ve already seen in Thampy Kannanthanam and Joshiy films. Neil Nitin Mukesh is made to walk in slow motion more than Vivek Oberoi in “Lucifer”. A lifeless villain. They could’ve called Oberoi again, but that’s not exactly a guarantee for anything, since he was also in “Kaduva” (which was a better Jinu Abraham-scripted mass entertainer despite not being as ambitious).

And don’t even get me started on the female characters. It’s better not to discuss them. Why take the time and effort when the film doesn’t do the same for them? They’re nothing more than mere props. The fights, to begin with, aren’t as ‘innovative’ as anything in, say, Prithviraj’s last film “I, Nobody”. A filmmaker has to remember that you’re dealing with an audience who has also seen way better action in international films like “John Wick”, “The Raid” or “The Furious”.

Take the car chases in “Khalifa”, for instance. It has the same problem that the car chase in “Patriot” had: people driving around in winding patterns, burning rubber, and drifting here and there, without generating any kind of tension. You could make the argument that we should be comparing it with what came before in Malayalam (or Indian cinema), and not compare Malayalam with Hollywood or Foreign-language thrillers, but the audience is eventually going to compare.

The makers of “Khalifa” seem to have gone with the reasoning that even if nothing else works in the film, they’re safe because of the highs delivered in the climactic Lucifer-esque Mohanlal entry — again, not ‘innovative’, but quite exciting for Mohanlal fans — coupled with the simultaneous entry of another popular young Malayalam star. Had these cameos been absent, “Khalifa” would have nothing exciting to offer. 

Film: Khalifa

Director: Vysakh

Cast: Prithviraj Sukumaran, Sanju Sivram, Shammi Thilakan, Shivajith, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Renji Panicker

Rating: 2/5