Kaalapatthar movie story: Shankara’s (Vikky Varun) army dreams are reduced to toiling away in the barrack kitchen, until he single-handedly foils an infiltration attempt by militants, when the rest of his colleagues were busy celebrating Kargil Diwas. His claim to fame not only gets him to swap cooking ladles for a rifle and frontline duty, but also made way for the people in his village back home to immortalize him with a life-size statue cut in black stone. Shankara’s journey from a literal nobody to hero has certain repercussions in his life, though.

Kaalapatthar movie review: The resilience that heroes in Indian cinema have, to draw on all reserves of energy and get the better of the enemy, even after having being beaten to a pulp and bearing multiple, rather serious injurious, is a trope that filmmakers just can’t seem to give up on. A cry for help, a cheer, a never-say-die attitude or even patriotism is all the hero needs to shrug off the most painful bashing and inflict even worse on the antagonist(s). In Kaalapatthar too, actor Vikky Varun, who doubles up as director too, relies on this aspect.

As a BSF jawan whose greatest action until then was chopping vegetables and punching chapathi dough, Shankara can not only single-handedly defend his barrack against the attack of 4-5 militants, but also do so while being punched and stabbed repeatedly. While that was an initial red flag, the actor-filmmaker redeems himself to a large extent with what comes next.

Back home on leave, Shankara enjoys the adulation he, and his statue, get, until he begins to experience certain things that convince him that his connection to the stone figure runs much deeper. Protecting the statue, though, comes at great personal cost for him.

As Shankara, Vikky Varun is earnest, although not the most physically convincing as an army man. He is joined by an ensemble cast including Dhanya Ramkumar as his love interest Ganga, a local primary teacher, TS Nagabharana, as the panchayat president, Rajesh Nataranga as the scheming MLA and Sampath Maitreya as Ganga’s father, a perennial pessimist, among others.

Dhanya gets a lot of costume changes; I was tempted to start counting because her role didn’t offer her much until almost the very end, when she was finally given one decent scene. No complaints about the rest of the cast, with everyone, especially Nagabharana and Rajesh Nataranga, giving their roles the right weightage.

Composer Anoop Seelin’s work on Kaalapatthar has been described as ‘a new version’ of him. The soundtrack works for the film, but on the questions of whether it elevates the film, stands out or remains with audiences after exiting the movie hall, well, I’m still on the fence.

The problem with a film like Kaalapatthar is that heavy subjects tend to lack in entertainment value. And if there’s a little too much melodrama in the mix, it gets even worse. Vikky’s exposition of the true purpose of statues is commendable, but it comes without the payoff one hopes for.

Kaalapatthar movie verdict: Vikky Varun’s debut directorial is a decent watch for the most part, but doesn’t quite stick the landing. 

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