Whodunnit is a staple in cinema, and in Malayalam movies, it has been used in police investigation stories for a long time.

For example, the now obsolete Sethurama Iyer movie franchise, centered around a Mr. clean cop who never makes a wrong move, and his employer – the CBI, acronym for the Central Bureau of Investigation, equivalent to the FBI – is legendary among moviegoers in Kerala.

When the police squander in an investigation, the CBI is brought in. The high-handed, secretive, and beta-male-taming sleuths of the CBI then deliver justice on the wings of an officer who embodies everything good.

However, recently, cop movies in Malayalam took a turn, an inward shift. The protagonist, who is always male, is a thinker. He no longer is the insufferable know-it-all but a man plagued by self-doubt, loathing, and personal tragedies.

The crisis he is in is definitely Bruce Wayne-like – the inner monologues, skeletons in the closet, and the urge to shatter a mirror into a thousand pieces.

I can’t exactly pinpoint the origin story of these broken cops, but some notable films in this sub-genre include Memories (2013), Villain (2017), and Kuttavum Shikshayum (2022).

If the sly cop in recent Malayalam films has a face, it’s actor Joju George. He is tall, his face plump, and you don’t exactly guess what’s in store until he approaches you. He fits the description of an average Malayali authority figure.

In 2021, Joju played a Dalit cop in Martin Prakkat's film Nayattu. A neatly executed thriller, written for the screen by a former cop, Nayattu was well received. However, it also divided the audience, with a section calling it blatantly anti-Dalit.

Loosely based on real-life incidents, Nayattu – hunt in English – showed how three innocent low-ranking police officials were used as pawns in a political stalemate.

The story, however, took a weird viewpoint, trying to imagine Kerala’s Dalit political outfits as a force with strong lobbying power when in reality Dalits across Kerala remain a discriminated and powerless community.

I’ve seen at least one critic calling Nayattu a fantasy for its hollow politics.

In Iratta, the politics of identity barely comes up to the outer layer as the characters more or less represent the lower middle-class strata, typical of any Malayalam commercial movie; it’s like a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.

Iratta tells the story of identical twins Vinod Kumar and Pramod Kumar. Yes, Iratta means twins, and as you could already imagine, there are not many topics that define creepiness like twins.

Both Vinod and Pramod survived a dysfunctional childhood. Separated as boys, Pramod lived with his mother and ended up as a high-ranking police official.

Meanwhile, Vinod, raised by his neglected, abusive, and perverted cop father, is a low-ranking police officer attached to the same police jurisdiction under his elder brother.

Pramod's marriage is in tatters, and he is occasionally hospitalized for panic attacks. He hasn't seen his wife in a long time and barely has a memory of his daughter.

For Vinod, life is a roulette. He is a rowdy, rogue, perverted, drunk, and morally corrupt cop. The brothers are estranged and have little respect for each other.

The movie opens with a rather out-of-place visual of two young boys playing gully cricket. One of them hits a six, launching the ball and the movie into the compound of a police station, where the rest of the movie takes place, sans some flashbacks.

Right after the film settles in the beautiful Vagamon hill station, we see Vinod Kumar shot three times with a police pistol at close range. There are three suspects, three cops on duty, and each of them has a history of personal skirmishes with the deceased, but none have a grudge worth killing the man.

The sudden death of the rogue cop sets off a chain of events, opening the floodgates of memories, and eventually brakes on a Greek tragedy-like situation.

Joju George obviously is the beating heart of this movie in his dual roles. Srikant Murali too gives a cunning performance. The only role that probably lacked depth was Srinda’s – it looked like a stretch.

One of the reasons I find Iratta engaging is its seamless travel between the territory of commercial cinema language and the essential character study that would have made it personal cinema. The small anecdotes easily filled the vacuum, giving the flashbacks the relevance the director intended. This approach helped the movie remain a thriller and redeem itself at the end despite its heavy-hung climax.

One of the criticisms this movie faced online was it enabled the rapist cop a chance of redemption. I don’t think that charge is legitimate. In fact, the film actually did a good job to give dimension to Vinod’s character without glorifying him.

Iratta is a decent thriller, but it’s not without its faults. The editing, music, and cinematography are all ordinary. There are many clichéd moments in the script, like that one time a song seeps into view to put viewers at ease, in a repeat of a thousand cinematic instances since time immemorial. Or when Joju coldly reveals how he spotted a dog leaving the police station compound as if delivering a punchline.

Iratta is now streaming on Netflix.