Balti Review | A Coming-Of-Age Gangster Drama With Familiar Beats and Solid Action

The movie Balti, starring Shane Nigam in the lead role, is a gangster drama that has a very interesting premise. The way they have composed all those fight sequences with fewer cuts, writer-director Unni Sivalingam is able to grab the attention of the audience right from the beginning. As the Story transitions into a more dramatic exchange between characters, the generic feel of gangster flicks with backstabbing and mind games happens, and it is reducing the flame we saw in the beginning. However, by utilizing all the setups we saw in the initial portions of the movie, Unni Sivalangam manages to mask the predictability of the Story, and what we end up with is a fairly engaging film that somehow manages to establish its characters and world for the audience.

Udhayan, Kumar, Suresh, and Mani are close friends, and they all play for the same Kabaddi team in their hometown. The skill these people had in the game eventually gave them an opportunity to have ties with the local money-lending biggie Bhairavan. As the relationship evolved from being players to Bhairavan’s close aides, many things happened in the personal equations among characters, and what we see here is the changes that happened in the lives of our main characters and the repercussions of those changes.

Almost from the word go, Balti has a certain level of energy, and one can say that it is pretty much showing us the emotional state of our heroes. They are not afraid of anyone, and hence they are at times doing the unthinkable. The first half of Balti is pretty much showing the rise of the gang, and it is a mix of Kabaddi matches and post-match fights. We get introduced to almost all the characters and their methodologies in the first half, and it is very much like an extended first act/setup. Usually, movies will show a conflict at the interval. But Balti shows us the entry of our heroes into a different league. When the film gets into the second half, it becomes less about showing the masculine energy, and Unni tries to build conflicts among characters, and he is also trying to establish some crooked games being pulled off by certain people. In those areas, the movie becomes predictable, and one can see Unni using all the setups he showed us in the first half, like the hands on the wall, the humiliation faced by money defaulters, etc, to balance out the lack of excitement. While the tail end is sort of making the movie look like a larger Story, I thought that the elaborate climax confrontation lacked impact in certain key areas. It was too swift.

One can see signs of Shane Nigam transforming from a phase of playing characters that are perpetually impulsive to a stage of adding some calmness to characters when required. Udhayan is a raging youth, like almost all of Shane’s hero characters. But when it comes to Balti, there are moments in the second half where that character is the level-headed one in the lot, and Shane performs those areas very neatly. Shanthanu, as Kumaar, plays the next most important character in the film. While in terms of emoting, he is doing a good job, I thought the decision to make him say Malayalam in his own voice was a flawed one. I mean, since the movie is happening in a border state, it would have looked really organic if Shanthanu spoke in Tamil and his Malayali friends responded to him in Tamil and Malayalam. Shiva Hariharan and Jeckson Johnson are the actors who performed the parts of the last two friends in the gang, and they were good.

Selvaraghavan, as the sweet and intimidating villain, is not doing anything extraordinary in front of the camera. But he is able to create an impact. Soda Babu, played by Alphonse Puthren, is that irreverent character, and the kind of energy Alphonse showed when the reporter asked a nonsensical question about the censor copy leak of Premam can be seen in his performance in this film. Preethi Asrani’s character, Kaveri, doesn’t have much screentime here. However, on the larger scheme of things, she is playing a character significant to the Story. The Shanthanu problem of forced Malayalam was there in the case of Preethi as well. Poornima Indrajith’s character also has a limited space, but for the Story to have the shape it has now, that character is essential, and she has the required swagger to be Gee Maa.

The Story here can be represented as a flow chart, as the beats of this coming-of-age gangster flick are somewhat familiar. I think Unni Sivalingam knows that fact, and he tries to ensure that the energy doesn’t drop in the narrative. The best way to do that is by having fights at regular intervals, and we have multiple action sequences in the first half. The choreography of those action blocks was really good as the cuts were really minimal and the shots were longer. When it comes to the second half, the drama is on the higher side, and hence, the pacing sort of drops. Again, it is the brutality in action scenes and the roughness in the way it has been visualized that keeps us interested in the developments. Alex J Pulickal mostly maintains that Vetrimaran-like warm tone for visuals. Sai Abhyankar’s tracks other than Jaalakari might not be that popular. However, in the context of the Story, his score and songs did justice to the movie.

Balti is a risky film that tries to tackle the familiar patches in the drama using accelerated pace and some clever placement of setups and payoffs. While the performances and the rawness of the action blocks make it an engaging watch, the familiarity in the emotional beats restrains it from being a fresh idea. Balti is a genuine attempt with sporadic takeaways for the viewer.