Ronth

Two police officers on night patrol. One is experienced, tired, and long past hoping anything about the system; the other is new, believes in the rules, and takes every call seriously. Across one night they answer whatever comes in: a fight, a missing person, a death. The tension between them rises at each stop, because the two of them understand the same job in entirely different ways. Shahi Kabir's Malayalam film builds its police story not around solving a case but around the shift. There is no case; there is a shift, and what that shift does to a person. The telling runs close to real time and the conversations in the car form its spine. Dileesh Pothan and Roshan Mathew play the two officers. Who it's for: Viewers who like films that describe police work from inside, two-hander narratives, and new-wave Malayalam cinema. Who it's not for: There is no action and the plot is deliberately loose. Inert if you want genre excitement.