Identity is the cinematic equivalent of an 'airport novel'. It even has a neatly staged suspense moment inside an airport and a mid-air stunt. You can tell its two directors, Akhil Paul and Anas Khan, who debuted with the Tovino Thomas-starrer Forensic, put a lot of effort into making a film that badly wants to look and feel like an international thriller.
And to an extent, it does. You can tell Akhil and Anas love incorporating details of their research into their script. They love to load their screenplay with plenty of information and dispense it in as many places as possible. And this is not made-up stuff.
For example, when Tovino tells us in one scene that a certain character is behaving this way for that reason, he actually takes out his phone and shows us a similar incident that happened in the past. Or like a scene that shows us someone losing data stored on their drive due to a scientific reason. We know this can be possible. However, we cannot shake off the nagging feeling the film is overstuffed with details.
There are long scenes of exposition where characters stand around each other and behave as though they are acting in a Hollywood film. This approach begins to feel grating after a certain point because everything looks and feels so mechanical. Perhaps this is a clever writing choice to prevent these characters from being easily accessible or predictable.
Take Tovino's character, Haran Shankar, a methodical man with a stickler for order and tidiness. He works like a machine. This stiff quality also applies to a few other characters, like the ones played by Vinay Rai or Trisha. Perhaps these actors were asked to behave this way to keep us guessing who did what or who is doing what to whom. This is a film that makes use of multiple red herrings and perspective shifts to throw us off. Some of these writing choices are quite clever.
For example, I found the occasional choice of making us see events from the perspective of Trisha's character and playing with time and memory quite good. There seems to be a Christopher Nolan influence in a few places, like when Trisha is trying to remember past events and we get intercuts of sparks, fire and explosion, like in Oppenheimer.
But there are also moments where a fair amount of confusion gets created when a certain character tries to mislead us. While this gets cleared up in the climax, I would've loved to see more clarity and excitement in other places, like the idea of a wanted criminal hiding in plain sight with a fair amount of ease.
I liked, however, the use of interesting parallels between the protagonist and antagonist with regard to how they both play with their own identities and those of others.
Having said that, I wished there was more thought put into crafting a more unfamiliar motive for some of the principal characters and their flashbacks because, after a point, you are struck by a strong sense of deja vu and staleness.
I wish Trisha had more to do in this film because her casting seems dictated more by a "pan-Indian" marketing strategy than a character-driven one. She doesn't get to do much other than look distressed and confused; at times, these reactions seem forced and register in a comical manner. Anyone could've played her character.
Every event culminates in a tense situation inside an airport where the film surprises us with two cool twists. Later, an intense fight sequence inside a chartered jet turns out to be the film's biggest action setpiece. It's also where the film gives us a nice 'mass' moment despite the usual cliches.
While watching Identity, I remembered the time when we 90s kids used to consume all those old Malayalam thrillers whose directors dared to step out of their comfort zone to do something that was never done before. Identity works to a certain extent because of some of the risks it takes to appeal to audiences across India, but the film tries too hard to look "international", a quality that, I fear, doesn't work in its favour.
Film: Identity
Directors: Akhil Paul-Anas Khan
Cast: Tovino Thomas, Trisha Krishnan, Vinay Rai, Aju Varghese
Rating: 2.5/5
