Malayalam star Dulquer Salmaan’s intense cop drama, Salute skipped its theatrical release and had a direct-to-OTT release on reputed streaming platform SonyLIV on March 18th. The film’s Telugu dubbed version is also available on the streaming channel. Let’s see how it fares.
Story: Following the footsteps of his elder brother Ajith Karunakaran(Manoj K Jayan) who is a DSP, Aravind Karunakaran ( Dulquer Salmaan) also joins the police department to serve the public. But soon after joining department, Aravind witnesses that it not the same as he imagined from outside. After seeing an innocent cornered in a crime case, Aravind leaves the job and goes on a long leave. Five years later, Aravind returns to his hometown for his brother’s daughter marriage and comes to know that life sentence is imposed to the innocent person and decides to bail out him. What kind of hurdles will Aravind go through in tracking the actual culprit in the crime case, forms the rest of the tale.
Performances: Dulquer Salmaan perfectly fitted in the role of a cop. His settled acting and dialogue delivery adds authentic texture to the proceedings.
Senior actor Manoj K Jayan did his part quite convincingly. Actress Diana Penty is decent in her extended cameo role as Dulquer’s love interest.
Artists such as Saniya Iyyappan, Lakshmi Gopalaswamy, Saikumar, Ganapathi are apt in their respective limited yet key roles.
Technicalities: The cinematography by Aslam K Purayil is good as he captured the mood of the film nicely. Editing by A Sreekar Prasad is fine as the film has sharpness. Production values by Dulquer Salmaan’s Wayfarer Films banner are apt for the film’s genre.
Music by Jakes Bejoy is fine as his background score elevates a few key scenes in this serious drama.
Analysis: While Bobby-Sanjay provided story and dialogues, Rosshan Andrrews taken the directional work of the film. Though the film looks like a regular investigative drama, the director narrated the proceedings with a gripping screenplay. Especially, the last forty minutes of the film will hookup the viewers. On the flip side, the slow-paced typical Malayalam film kind of narration may not go well all section of the viewers.
To summerize, Salute is an investigative crime drama that has a few engaging moments. Though the initial episodes look flat, later the film starts creating curiosity with the twists and turns during pre-climax and ends as a one-time watch.
Verdict: Passable investigative drama!
Rating: 2.5/5
