Anand Sreebala story: A news channel decides to air a special investigative feature about the death of law student Merin, six months after the police closed the case as a suicide. Anand Sreebala, a youngster who is awaiting the results of his SI test, is tasked with probing the case, for his journalist girlfriend. The assignment soon makes him lock horns with the Deputy Superintendent of Police. What starts out as an ego issue between Anand and the Kerala Police, soon becomes a quest for justice for Merin.

Anand Sreebala review: Ever since the trailer of Arjun Ashokan’s latest movie Anand Sreebala was released, it was clear that the film was based on the 2017 case of Mishel Shaji’s death, which is still fresh in the memory of the Malayali audience. While the film’s scriptwriter Abhilash Pillai had said that he had also taken references from several other such cases for the script, what remained to be seen was whether the team had made good use of the source materials to bring out a film, which could reopen discussions or entertain the audience, or even both. Does Anand Sreebala fulfill any of that? Not quite.

The film starts off by introducing an aspiring police officer, Anand Sreebala, who frequently helps the police by finding the missing pieces in cases. He is given his test for the post of sub inspector, and is awaiting the results, when as a side gig, his journalist girlfriend asks him to help her out with an investigative report on a law student, who had reportedly killed herself.

The film’s writer Abhilash and director Vishnu Vinay build Arjun Ashokan’s Anand as an interesting character. He feels the presence of his dead mother (Sangita Madhavan Nair), who was a head constable herself; this is both his strength and his weakness, one that puts him at loggerheads with the Deputy Superintendent of Police and even leads to him having to put aside his dreams of becoming a cop. What starts out as an ego tussle between himself and the Kerala police, soon evolves into a quest of justice for the law student and her parents.

Considering the premise, it’s almost about an underdog vs the system story, and add to the layer of a common man outwitting the entire police to solve a case, that the latter was lax about. This could have made for a thrilling plot that could have engaged the audience. However, Anand Sreebala fails to fulfil this promise, due to lacklustre writing and basic direction, which makes it almost formulaic. Add to this a tepid flow of events, mostly because things soon get predictable despite the umpteen twists that the makers try to add towards the end, and the audience rarely get invested in what’s happening.

Maybe Abhilash, whose previous movies Night Drive, Pathaam Valavu and Cadaver too were all based on true events, missed a trick here, by not highlighting enough the plight of the parents, who are yet to find closure for their daughter’s death. Even the parallels of love/hate between mother-son duos get lost in the basic storytelling that the makers adopt for Anand Sreebala.

While Arjun does fill out the shoes of a common man, who has his own flaws, trying to make a change with the skills he possesses, the film would have benefited, if it was either clever or had some heroism. Right now, it falls somewhere in the middle, and that’s just not enough for an investigative thriller to be gripping. The movie also has a host of actors like Dhyan Sreenivasan, Azeez Nedumangad, Sshivada and Aju Varghese in wasted cameos. Sangita’s role is a disappointment, again considering the smart ways they could have used her character as ‘the invisible hand guiding the seeker of the truth’.

Anand Sreebala verdict: This Arjun Ashokan-starrer doesn’t quite have the smarts to keep the audience engaged throughout the investigation, despite a promising protagonist, who too stumbles due to the basic writing.

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