Cyanide: Kannada movie

Title: Cyanide (2006)
Director: A. M. R. Ramesh
Starring: Avinash, Suresh Heblikar, Tara, Rangayana Raghu, Malavika and Ravi Kale


How many times have I not wondered that we miss a good serious Police procedural movie in Kannada. We mostly have Police characters who are card board cutouts made for Superstars to get into. We have seen the honest Policeman, the fearless policemen and some times a corrupt policemen in collaboration with the Politicians. We know that these are stereotypes easily used to extract a certain kind of reaction from the audience. It was hard for me to imagine a Police officer in India who would resemble an ordinary human being and not a super man. Off course the reason for this is the star centered nature of Indian movies. But even those could have been made to look natural.

So finally I saw this in Cyanide. This very well done movie for once does not treat audience like they will swallow anything and not complain. The director A.M. R. Ramesh (this is his second movie. His first movie was Santhoshakke) has done a splendid job of creating a very realistic and believable atmosphere in the movie. The narration is done in such a way that the director wants you to get into the middle of the real life incidents. The characters, the locations and the gritty narration is very interesting to watch and it is quite believable too.

I will not give away too many details because that spoils the movie watching experience for the readers. I Will only comment on the movie making and keep the plot narration to the minimum. I do not want to take away your pleasure when you watch the movie.

This is the story of how the police finally caught up with the killers of former Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi. Shivarasan and Subha are the two master minds behind the assassination and they were on the run after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi near Chennai in 1990. The police are looking for suspected LTTE terrorists and they get a hint that some of them are in Bangalore. They then start investigating and slowly start putting clues together. The leads help them to engage in a hot pursuit of the suspects. As they start getting more clues to where the terrorists might be hiding the police have no clue that they are after a very high value target.

One thread of the story follows the police side and does a good job of laying thread bare the investigative process. In the process we see some nice shots of locales in and around Bangaluru. The way the police zero in on the terrorists is done in a methodical way without any hurry or stretch.

On the other side is the story of the two terrorists and their gang who are on the run. A mechanic named Ranganath gets involved with the terrorists unwittingly when he is approached by the terrorists through an acquaintance looking for a rental property. Ranganath moonlights as a real estate broker. So he does find a home for the terrorists but then when the terrorists realize they have to move for more safety they are behind Ranganath to get them another rental home and he gets pulled into their midst along with his wife Mrudula played by Tara.

What was a bit weak was the way they have tried to create the characters of the terrorists and their interaction with each other. While the director tries to understand the events from their side he seems to have romanticized their roles and attitudes. Some of the points made by the voice over in the movie seems to suggest that the movie does not take any clear stand on the issue . It simply pushes the tough issues of terrorism, its causes and effects, under the rug and deals with them superficially only to the extent they are useful from a cinematic point of view. This is disappointing because the movie has taken a very weighty issue and has succeeded in the art of making a no nonsense movie. I wish they could have also included a clearly articulated message. But that still does not take away the credit the movie rightly deserves.

While watching the character of Ranganath I realized that the actor was putting a bold performance with his dignified under acting. His acting was so engrossing especially in the presence of the Tara's traditional histrionics, I was wondering "who is this bold actor who is holding his own especially in front of the Star Tara". In the end when I saw that this was Rangayana Raghu I thought to myself "No wonder". Looks like he has imbibed the skills of method acting through Rangayana. He just becomes Ranganath and consequently his performance is so good and natural that I felt it was flawless. Others notable are Avinash as Officer Kempiah and the Marathi actor Ravi Kale who plays Sivarasan. Sampath Kumar as Suresh Master has given a dignified performance. Malavika of Mayamruga fame plays Subha.

Editing, Photography, locales and the action sequences are well handled. By the way there is not even one song or any of those cinematic stunts.

This is a rare Kannada movie. I wish Ramesh takes on more such projects.

This movie gets 8 out of 10.