Director Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi seems to love flashbacks. She weaves in three major ones — and another minor one — in her latest Vijay Antony-starrer Kaali, but still manages to keep it engaging.
She wastes little time in establishing her plot; within a couple of minutes into the film, we understand that Barath (Vijay Antony) is a high-flying doctor in the U.S. but isn’t too happy with life. He keeps getting a recurring dream, in which there’s a snake, cow and woman. He gets this dream every day, and he doesn’t know why.
There’s a big revelation within the first five minutes: he’s an adopted son, and his real parents enrolled him in an orphanage more than two decades ago. Barath realises that his dream has something to do with it, and takes it upon himself to travel to India, to find out about his past life and seek his parents.
Kaali flits effortlessly into the first flashback, and we’re soon sucked into a romance that kickstarts with a stage performance of Romeo and Juliet . A bit later, there’s another flashback with another person, and before you know it, there’s a third. All starring Vijay Antony.
As an actor, Vijay Antony is very limited, but he smartly avoids attempting any nuance in emotions or action. This restraint helps Kaali loads. Even the seemingly-unnecessary elements seem to have some purpose. A needless fight in a bar ends in a big revelation, which we later understand isn’t as important as we had deemed it to be. There’s an uncalled-for flashback (one of the many), but it ends in the intricately-delicate ‘Arumbe’, proof that composer Vijay Antony is still in good form. Gopi (Yogi Babu, sporting some T-shirts with some funny quotes) provides for some good comic relief and balances the otherwise serious quest of Barath.
