Corona Papers review: Priyadarshan’s thriller about a missing gun and consequent crime spree largely misfires

2/5

Story: Rookie sub-inspector Rahul Nambiar’s gun gets stolen in a bus, forcing him and his superiors to keep it a secret till they locate the pickpocket. Within days, the gun changes hands multiple times and is used in a bank robbery and homicide. As the cops get cracking on the case, the culprits fail to stick to their plan due to their circumstances. How does the gun seal their fates and also connect their pasts?

Review: Director Priyadarshan’s crime thriller, Corona Papers, begins by stating that the maker has drawn inspiration from Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog, a 1949 police mystery about a gun that gets stolen but serves as an exploration in the socio-economic situation of Japan post World War II. While the Malayalam filmmaker doesn’t dig that deep with his latest venture, he has borrowed the missing gun element and the consequent crimes angle to showcase the dilemma of the characters on both sides of the law for the movie.

Also read: Shane Nigam on Corona Papers: ‘Was confident I could play a cop as I had done Vela before’ 

Unlike his movies of the previous decade, Priyadarshan opts for a rather slow-burner approach with this film. Corona Papers starts off with a crime and encounter killings that happened four years ago, before kicking off the events in the current timeline. It does take a lot of patience to connect the two events because the storytelling here is rather haphazard.

Priyadarshan spends too much time on each character, digressing from the storyline every time, while never truly fleshing out these personalities enough for the audience to care about them. For instance, Shane’s rookie police officer, Rahul Nambiar, is initially introduced as its protagonist and drives the film’s narrative for about 30 minutes, before it changes direction and lets Siddique’s character take over. This could be overlooked, if Rahul is again the focus when the story is told from the perspective of the cops. Instead, when we see him next, he is just another passing character in the frame, with a lady police officer (Sandhya Shetty) taking over the reins on screen.

Also read: Corona Papers’ Priyadarshan: People told me new-gen actors don’t listen to yesteryear directors, but it’s not true 

The effort to keep things unpredictable seems to be focused only on how Siddique’s character evolves. But the payoff here is far from rewarding. Though there are a few nice set-ups – like when Shane and Siddique’s characters accidentally meet and share their predicament or when an accomplice flees from the latter believing he is the devil, the script doesn’t quite bring it home. Also, while the intent of Jean Paul Lal and Vijilesh’s characters to commit the robbery is outlined, you can’t quite put your finger on why Siddique is driving the effort.

The biggest crime in the film is how some of the characters, who are built up as shrewd criminals, are treated. While Sandhya Shetty’s character gets a taste of this, it’s Shine Tom Chacko’s role that bears the brunt of this. His character mouths tongue twisters, gets enraged for no reason and still comes off as clownish during his interactions with his wife. In fact, there are so many instances where you feel these scenes would have probably drawn sincere laughs, had it been a comedy.

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Siddique is in his element and gets to play with a wide array of emotions. Though Shane Nigam tries his best to essay a rather restrained part, his character comes off as too plain. Gayathrie Shankar, Hannah Reji Koshy don’t get enough screen time in the film. Sandhya Shetty, who plays the conniving police officer, too doesn’t stand out in Corona Papers, which is filled with morally grey characters.

The film, which is 155-minute-long suffers from endless digressions and that’s exactly the problem of Corona Papers, the script and its characters are stuck in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t quite have the suspense or intrigue to pass off as a decent crime thriller nor does it have enough layers to warrant a watch as a crime drama either. The less said about the ending twist, the better.

Verdict: For a crime thriller, Corona Papers ends up as a rather tedious watch due to its intent-less characters and meandering storytelling.