Elumale movie review: Raanna’s thriller packs a punch but remains middling

Elumale movie review: A love story, a cover-up and a massive operation to nab a forest brigand; there’s a lot to process in this 2-hour tale

Raanna in Elumale

Elumale movie story: Harisha (Raanna) a cab driver and Revathy (Priyanka Achar), a girl from an affluent family, are madly in love, much to the displeasure of her folks. In their attempt to keep the lovers apart, they try to get her married to someone else, but on the eve of her wedding, she runs away from home, determined to be united with Harisha. Male Mahadeshwara Betta is where they plan to meet up, but they soon find out that that is going to easier said than done.

Elumale movie review: It’s not easy to merge multiple plot points and present a final cohesive narrative, especially in a thriller. But that’s exactly what debutant director Punit Rangaswamy manages to do in Elumale, which is now in theatres. At its core, the film is actually a love story, but for the young couple, a happily-ever-after may not be on the cards, when he gets caught up in a sinister plot unfolding at a police station in the Male Mahadeshwara Betta range, as she tries to make her way to him. And if that isn’t bad enough, the night they chose to elope is also when an operation to nab a forest brigand is set to unfold.

On the one hand there’s Raanna’s Harisha desperate to get to Mysuru and later MM Hills to get to his loved one, and on the other, a hot-headed and ruthless cop trying to make the former a scapegoat in a cover-up mission. How this then ties in with the larger operation is neatly done, and kudos to the writing department. But why then does Elumale leave one with a slightly dissatisfied feel?

The core element – the love story – is where I felt a disconnect. His incessant attempts to speak to ‘Chinni’ at the risk of the safety of the passengers in his cab and her repeated queries about his whereabouts were a tad jarring, as also their conversations whenever they did manage to get through to each other. I was not half as invested in the Harisha and Revathy plot than I was in whether Inspector Venkatesh Nayak (Kishore), will get away with his ploy to implicate the former in a crime or the third arc of arms smuggling.

Raanna’s full head of hair that flopped across his face and abundant facial fuzz barely left his eyes as the only discernible feature, which, in a story set at night, made figuring out his emotional state quite a task. In her debut, Priyanka makes a decent start, although her dialogue delivery could do with a bit more heft. Kishore and TS Nagabharana are well cast, although the same cannot be said about Jagapati Babu as the commando heading Operation Cocoon.

Also read: Ek Love Ya actor Raanna on the 3 years it took for his next film: I felt audiences won’t want to see me in a commercial entertainer

Elumale movie verdict: At just over 2 hours run-time, Elumale has a tight narrative that is interesting for the most part and makes for a decent watch.

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