Unda

Khalid Rahman's 2019 Malayalam film is about a police unit sent to another state for election duty. The officers from Kerala arrive in the Bastar region, forested and mined territory where a Maoist insurgency continues. The team has not been trained for this kind of assignment and, worse, the ammunition they were issued is insufficient, a shortfall that is both the source of the film's tension and its real criticism. It builds no heroism; the policemen are frightened, make wrong decisions, and how the state leaves its own personnel unequipped is plainly visible. Their relations with local people and the barrier of language are inside the story too. Mammootty plays the unit's leader outside the usual heroic mould. Who it's for: viewers who like Malayalam cinema and realistic tension. Who it's not for: anyone expecting sustained action; the film is built on waiting.