‘Edakkad Battalion 06’ review: Tovino’s drama struggles to make the audience care

Edakkad Battalion 06 is an earnest effort about the inspirational life of an army Captain, played by a significantly ripped Tovino Thomas. The film begins with an elaborate voice-over, introducing the many characters in Shafeek Mohammed’s (Tovino) friends and family circle. The father who makes biryani for a living, the mother who’s a panchayat member, the sister who is planning to becoming a cop, the aunt who is equal parts nice and nasty, the childhood friend with his failed dream... it is a cosy set-up that debut director Swapnesh K Nair creates, while breaking a few stereotypes on the way.

The promising beginning, however, doesn’t quite take off. Shafeek is something of a terror to the local youth who like to hang out on the bridge over a culvert, doing drugs. When someone close to him comes under their web, there is a stab of intrigue that enters the placid plot. But beyond reprimanding them, Shafeeq doesn’t really do anything more. What could have been an investigation into the drug mafia is limited to a good Samaritan fable.

The writing (P Balachandran) is ordinary and serves up generic lines in a rushed screenplay that doesn’t build the scenes sufficiently to move the viewers. Take the sequence when Shafeeq’s father burns the biryani he’s making for a wedding feast. The scene between father and son post the incident is meant to be emotional, but it barely touches us because the dialogues are too plastic.

Tovino Thomas is among the most versatile actors we have in the Malayalam industry. He’s especially good at bringing vulnerability to macho man roles with ease. Edakkad Battalion 06 attempts to do this but without originality – Captain Shafeek saves children from fire twice in the film to underline his selfless nature but we never really get to meet him as a person. Even the romance between Shafeek and Naina (a pretty Samyuktha Menon) unfolds in broad strokes. Both the actors have proved what they can bring to the table in other films, so the lack of chemistry here appears to be a problem with the scripting and clumsy direction.

Though Bollywood’s Uri was panned for its hypernationalism which pandered to the ruling party, you felt for the families that lost their loved ones at the border. But despite Edakkad not having such an in-your-face agenda, the film struggles to make the audience care. When an important character dies, for instance, the camera deliberately shows how each person is affected in a documentary style instead of making the articulation of grief look organic and natural. The background score (Kailas Menon) works overtime to whip up sentiments for scenes that would have made us weep buckets in a better directed film. The twist in the plot may seem clever and unpredictable but the generic (yes, that word again) way in which the whole thing is executed comes as a downer.

It’s also puzzling why nobody – from Shafeek to a worried policeman father – thinks drug addiction needs medical care and not mere vigilantism or a sound beating. The young people, who are pivotal to the plot, get absolutely no characterisation other than unruly hairstyles. They may have felt inspired enough to get haircuts and a more disciplined life at the end it, but the audience is largely left unmoved.

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the series/film. TNM Editorial is independent of any business relationship the organisation may have with producers or any other members of its cast or crew.