Ariya Kanangal – Review | Manish Balakrishnan | Tamil Short Film



Thrillers are the latest craze of Tamil cinema and right from Dhuruvangal 16 to Kuttram 23, we have a lot of thrillers which are actually worth-watching too.

Ariya Kanangal directed by Manish Balakrishnan is one such Tamil thriller short film and does it live up to the expectations caused by \”Psychological Thriller\” tag?

Let us read below.

What happens?

Sadam (Nandha Kishore) is a police officer investigating a murder case and the girl accused, who has earlier surrendered, is denying her involvement in the case and says she last met with a vedic psychologist. Sadam is confused and he meets up with Siva Ram (Harish Kumar), who is the Vedic psychologist\’s assistant and after few twists, Manish cracks the case or not is the question.

What we liked:

First of all, it would be Harish and Nandha\’s performances. Nandha has a look of a police officer and if he puts on some weight, he would fit in tee for most Tamil cop flicks. Harish Kumar has very few moments on screen and still, he attracts the viewers with his facial emotions and if rightly moulded, he would go places.

Manish\’s idea of making a psychological thriller in 10 minutes timespan is laudable and he does do a decent job within the given timeframe.

The idea of sneezing or coughing when someone asks you a question, that you wouldn\’t to answer is a good evasion technique and is used rightly in the short film.

Danush Baskar\’s cinematography helps the director in setting the right feel for a thriller.

What we didn\’t like?

Lack of details in respect to the murder is an important weak point of the film. Any murder thriller or crime thriller needs means and motive well described and Ariya Kanangal has shown its means but not the motive behind the murder. Hence, in case the story has to be stretched into a feature film, a lot of loopholes and questions has to be addressed.

Dialogues are very important to be crisp and interesting for a thriller and we felt the dialogues needed a bit of revisiting as the film is actually voice-over based.

Our verdict

Manish\’s Ariya Kanangal has some impeccable performances and qualified technical team and with a few changes in the screenplay and actual story, it would have been an even better thriller.

Kudos to the team!

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnNNU1zpThg&h=340]

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