Iratta Review | Joju George Shines in a Thriller That Explores Dilemmas

The weirdly interesting thing about the new Joju George film Iratta is the fact that a significant part of the climax reveal is easily predictable. But despite that, when one key piece of information is revealed in the very last minutes of the film, you forget about all those things you guessed. And writer-director Rohith MG Krishnan deviates our attention to the personal dilemma of its characters. With the face eventually becoming a crucial factor, Iratta is a movie with an emotionally disturbing climax.

SPOILER ALERT! Skip this paragraph if you don’t want to know much about the plot. DYSP Pramod and ASI Vinod are the central characters of this crime thriller. A few minutes into the movie, it is revealed that the death of a policeman has happened at the Vagamon police station, which was supposed to host a program inaugurated by the forest minister. The policeman who died was Vinod, and Pramod arrived at the spot immediately. With media and people being present at the time of the death, the situation became very intense as the police had a case against themselves. How they resolved this situation in a short period is what you see in Iratta.

When you backtrack the whole film, there are various ways in which you can approach this story. If you connect the climax twist with the stark difference between the brothers, it can even be perceived as indirect preaching on bad parenting. In the early part of the investigation, the methods are pretty flat, and Rohith establishes the notion that Vinod never deserved a life. But then he introduces this social introspection on how such an individual is created. And the movie manages to create a crippling dilemma in our heads, and when you look at the character of Pramod, that dilemma is almost double for him as he shares the face and blood with that individual.

As I said in the beginning, we aren’t really distracted to look at the movie as a whodunit. Because looking at the staging of the scene, the first impression is that it is a suicide. And as the investigation proceeds, you, as an audience, are also trying to write off the prospect of murder. When you look at the reason for the death, it is not something that escaped the radar of the audience. But the film’s success is in fooling the audience by presenting the twist they predicted differently. The editing by Manu Antony balances the emotional quotient and the thriller aspect neatly. The second half track of Malini and Vinod that gets stretched out for a bit too long was perhaps the only issue with the pacing of this otherwise tightly composed thriller.

Joju George delivers a terrific performance in the film. The looks of both the characters aren’t too different. If you look at the transitions happening in those characters, he almost plays four phases of two characters. Achieving distinctiveness is tricky in such situations, and Joju manages to crack that very neatly. As the character Malini, Anjali could convey that character’s trauma with minimal words. Abhiram Radhakrishnan delivered a memorable performance along with Manoj KU and Sabumon. Arya Salim, Srikanth Murali, Srindaa, etc., are the other prominent names in the long star cast of the film.

One movie that came to mind once I finished watching Iratta was Kariyilakattu Pole. I am not trying to compare the two films. But both films have this whodunit outlook, but ultimately, what connects with the viewer is the dilemma and pain of the one who investigated the case and had to deal with the deeply personal end result.