Amazon Prime Video released the psychological, political thriller – ‘Kuruthi‘, earlier this week and it has become another positive addition in the favour of Malayalam cinema, especially among Malayalam direct-to-OTT releases. The film was liked by critics and viewers alike for various key aspects, including – the first director, Manu Warrier, for his vision, the scriptwriter, Anish Pallyal, for his incredible story, good OST, really good acting – especially by the veteran actor Mamukkoya, premise, etc. However, the one thing that stood out ahead of others was Prithviraj’s mesmerizing performance as the deranged villain – Laiq. His performance onscreen is what made this film into a must-watch, in our opinions – and to think, he was initially offered the role of Ibrahim, the protagonist.
Prithviraj is a versatile, veteran actor who has had over one and half decades worth of acting experience, for one so young in the film industry. But the actor has mainly stuck to protagonist roles, so when the script was given to him, everyone involved in the movie – Prithviraj included, thought that he was going to play the protagonist. And to be fair, we can see him doing the role justice. But to oppose Prithviraj’s version of Ibrahim, they needed an even more intimidating actor to portray Laiq – a task that they found quite hard to do. Eventually, when they ran out of ideas, they decided to test out Prithviraj as Laiq. This change helped them visualize the film better, which then immediately help them figure out the actors they needed to cast for ‘Kuruthi’. And the rest is history.
Prithviraj has played many types of heroes and anti-heroes on screen, but this is the first time we are seeing Prithviraj play a character such as Laiq on screen. Laiq is an unstoppable force of violence (according to the actor himself), who searching for the man who killed his father. He meets a peaceful man of immovable faith, Ibrahim, who will not sacrifice his ideals for anything.
As mentioned earlier, check out ‘Kuruthi’ on Amazon Prime Video.