Kondal Review..!!

Weekend Blockbusters are back with yet another Onam release after RDX in 2023. Kondal is an action movie starring Antony Varghese and directed by Ajith Mampally. The trailer also promised yet another action feast on the lines of RDX. The film also has Raj B Shetty, playing an important character. Most of the film happens on a boat and it is evident from the trailer. Also, if you remember the first look teaser of the film, it was an instant hit among action lovers. But when it comes to the film, it had a promising start but later ended up as something forgettable.

So, the film begins at the backdrop of fishing labours and Antony Varghese’s character ‘Manuel’ is introduced as a character who is up to something. He plays a family man who was working abroad but left everything all of a sudden to settle with his family. The reasons are unknown and now he is a drunkard who doesn’t seem to have a full-time job. Yes, it is evident that he has a mysterious background who is constantly in search of something. This is the pivotal part of the story. But the main plot commences only after 20 minutes into the film. In the meantime, the makers chose to introduce a few antagonistic characters just to spice things up, who have no impact on the story. They have basically not generated any number of intriguing moments nor brought any attachment towards the central character and his life in this period. These 20 minutes of the story cannot be even perceived as a cooling period and these episodes genuinely lack the necessary impact. Because we see Manuel fighting for a cause that doesn’t seem to affect the storyline in any manner.

We see Manuel stalking a random character, giving up on him and finally landing upon a boat. The boat is leaving with a bunch of fishermen to deep sea and is only set to return after a few days. But there is something being planned on the boat, which is privy to only a few of them. So now, the audience are let known that this boat has answers to Manuel’s questions. From here on, the film takes place entirely on this boat and the answers are unfolded slowly. But to be very fair, this doesn’t look like a plot with lot of moments and it felt needlessly stretched. There is nothing to be called as the development of characters of story. There are a few characters on the boat and nobody knows the reason what they are even doing on a boat. The conversations between those characters doesn’t make any sense or develop any striking moment in the film. If the makers intended to create a conflict or tense situation with these characters, it has sadly yielded no positive result. That was not acting as a deceiving plot point for the audience. Instead, it was bland and boring. There are umpteen such moments in the film that served no purpose to the original story.

Shortly after the intermission point, there is a flashback portion that further pulls down the film. The sequences were bland and wasn’t building a strong reason for the audience to root for the protagonist. It was supposed to be the key scene that drives the pre climax and final portions but they were just oddly placed in the story. The limited environment in which the story’s core scenes take place has completely backfired by this time. They couldn’t build any tense moments till the very end or even achieve an emotional appeal through the flashback.

Despite that, there are a few action sequences that were well choreographed. The deep-sea portions and the VFX shark were good. But they were more like random placements in the film and the much necessary connection to the story was still missing. Overall, a stretched screenplay and the emotional disconnect pulls down this action revenge flick.