Story: A gripping tale, the story begins with IG Chandrasekhar (mohanlal) who is an upright and intelligent police official. However, he starts losing interest in his job due to his broken marriage with his wife Deepthi (priyamani) who is a noted criminal lawyer. With this, he sets up a beautiful chessboard at his home and prefers playing instead of working on cases. However, the kidnapping of three girls by a mentally sick Jerome (riyaz khan) gets Chandrasekhar into the act once again. He is assisted by Kishore (narain) and Rasheed (jagathy) in the chase. But in comes another serial killer who starts playing a mind game with Chandrasekhar. What happens from there forms the rest of the story.

Presentation: The director has come up with a thriller storyline and while the presentation was convincing mostly, the narrative was good in parts. The dialogues were sensible. The script was average but the screenplay was above average. Background score was good and all the songs were melodious. Cinematography was effective. Editing was neat but it could have been better. Costumes didn’t have much to do while the art department was apt to the surroundings. Mohanlal has come up with a very good performance and he suits the role perfectly. Priyamani looks buxom and she carried her role with élan. Babu Anthony was brilliant. Narain was natural, Jagathy was nice, Riyaz Khan was mean. Siddhique was standard. The others did their bit as required.

Conclusion: It has been quite a while since superstar Mohanlal has scored a hit but this film is going to give him a breather. More than his performance, it is the concept and theme of the film which appeals to the audience. While the first half goes at a moderate pace the twist at the interval bang was nice. It is the second half which picks up the momentum and makes things interesting. Of course, there are few logical loopholes but they get ignored due to the pace of the movie. Overall, this is a film which will appeal to the mainstream audience so it will reach the profit zone at the box office.
 
Bharatstudent verdict: Nice concept with twists