The incident that sets off the plot in Vela is quite a small one, but it branches off in unexpected ways. A man calls up the police control room one night, complaining about a group of youth, including his minor son, consuming drugs on the terrace of his house. A police party gets dispatched, but Ullas Augustin (Shane Nigam), the newbie police officer who had taken the call at the control room, has second thoughts thinking about the minor’s future.
On the ground, Mallikarjun (Sunny Wayne), a senior police officer, has already made a move that would have implications at the personal and political levels. From this point on, Syam Sasi’s directorial debut seeks to build the narrative around the conflict between these two police officers; the upright rookie and the corrupt and criminal-minded senior cop. Yet, it is not an ego clash or a match-up where it is hard to take sides. The lines between them are drawn, and the evil cop lacks redeeming factors.
For a good part of the movie, screenwriter M. Sajas makes up for this lack of nuance in their rivalry by injecting a certain ambiguity into the plot at several points. The attempt is to stay clear of the usual pathways in a procedural film. Control room chatter gets foregrounded in the narrative, with a constant stream of frivolous and fake calls making life difficult for the officers. But it does get repetitive after a point, and things hit a dead end until another long call drives the film towards a laboured climax.
Vela (Malayalam)
Initially, the intriguing nature of the proceedings gives us hope of things turning out in an entirely different manner. But the writer fails to build on this point. The only surprise the film manages to throw is about a character’s true nature, something most people would have guessed much earlier. Despite this, Syam shows some promise with his craft in his debut.
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Vela, the title, conveys multiple meanings. One is about the job and how different people approach it. The other ‘vela’ signifies the temple festival, which forms the film’s backdrop, but it does not gel much with the narrative other than causing a traffic block and extra duty for the police officers.
After Corona Papers, Shane Nigam again gets to play a rookie cop. But, in this film, his character is invested with some depth, which is lacking in the case of Sunny Wayne’s character, although the actor makes up for it to an extent with his performance. The performances of the duo and Sidharth Bharathan as a middle-aged cop drive the film up to a point. Namritha M.V. and Aditi Balan get barely any screen time.
Vela sets up an intriguing premise, but fails to make use of it with things fizzling out in the end.
Vela is currently running in theatres
