Cast: Skanda (Suraj), Ramesh Pisharody, Manikuttan, Ayilya, Vani, Jayasurya, Jagathy Sreekumar, Saikumar, P.Sreekumar, Boban Alummoodan, T.G.Ravi, Sreejith Ravi, Augustine, Mala Aravindan, Bindu Panicker, Maya Viswanath, Deepika

Director: V K Prakash

Lyrics: Vayalar Sharath Chandra Varma

Cinematography: R. Ganesh

Editing: Mahesh Narayanan

Art Direction: Bawa

Screenplay: S.N. Swamy

Story Writer: S.N. Swamy


Yawning plot holes, a convoluted finale and an attractive twist that sadly belongs somewhere else - V K Prakash's Positive suffers from an overdo of characters that are all too regular, and shocks that are all too strained.

Raju (Suraj) is a musician engineer who runs a band with three of his bosom pals, the tomboyish Winnie (Vani Kishore), the slightly wacky Udayan (Maikuttan) and the merry Cherry (Ramesh Pisharody). A chance encounter with Jyothi (Ayilya) soon leads to a short-lived romance. Raju is totally devastated when Jyothi disappears without a trace, and when she resurfaces a few months later, he finds himself accused of nothing short of homicide.

It so happens, that repeatedly fed on an assortment of murder mysteries time and again, the viewer these days has quite a fascinating ability to latch on to the most unsuspecting character as the likely murderer. And hence, having crossed out the list of potential suspects, it's not long before we zero in on the wrongdoer and wait for the plot to work out in accordance with our conclusion. It's here that Positive goes all jumpy and uncertain. For, in its attempt to put up a relatively surprising culprit, the film concocts a lame tale that simply refuses to gel and that stands out like an awfully sore thumb.

S N Swamy goes a bit wobbly with the jigsaw pieces this time around. The local Hitchcock does come up with an exciting premise and he is cautious to leave the leading cues all over the place to keep us perplexed to the hilt. So we get busy with the scratching, and it sadly turns out that there's nothing much beneath except some cooked-up gag that leaves you with a discontented sigh. Much like an Agatha Christie having a migraine, the Officer-in-charge Aniyan (Jayasurya) goes about tossing about the minor plot particulars that are almost pointless.

Here is a director who has left us awestruck repeatedly, with a technical brilliance that's often unmatched. Positive is no exception and competently propped up by outstanding cinematography (Ganesh), Prakash comes up with a visually dazzling product. The highly impressive VFX team behind that awesome song that regrettably comes in at the most inappropriate moment deserves a huge round of applause as well. And I suppose the musical backdrop is indeed excuse enough to bring in Alex Paul's lilting tunes into a supposedly edge-of-the-seat thriller.

It's a risky proposition indeed to go ahead with a whodunit these days, especially since the conventions and clichés that drive the genre forward have become all too apparent. It fundamentally comes down to a grappling mind game between the author and the spectator; as the tale wavers between the credible and the totally improbable as in Positive, the latter comes up trumps.

I am appalled by the way the writing has failed Prakash in all his movies till date, except the decisively special Freaky Chakra. Which is a shame really, for backed up by a solid script the man could essentially do miracles on screen.