Kali (2016 film)


Kali is a 2016 Indian Malayalam-language action drama film directed and co-produced by Sameer Thahir, starringDulquer Salmaan and Sai Pallavi. It is the second collaboration of Thahir and Salmaan, after Neelakasham Pachakadal Chuvanna Bhoomi.
The film was shot in Kochi, Vagamon, Athirappilly, Masinagudi, and Gudalur.
Kali was released on 26 March 2016 to critical and commercial success. It has since been remade in Kannada as Kidi. The film was dubbed and released into Telugu as Hey Pillagada in November 2017.

Plot

Siddharth is a young man, gets extremely angry, very quickly, as shown in flashback where when a kid hits his nose with finger to make fun of his anger issues, the kid gets beaten badly, nose bleeding. Then in college, a student gang from another college hits Sidharth's friend. For this Sidharth beats all the students of the gang with extra beating for those who hit him. He is married to Anjali by register marriage. Through his friends help he gets work in a bank in Kochi. Sidharth gets angry and shuts off the main electricity switch when a small kid from neighborhood comes to his house and puts TV volume very high in spite of Sidharths request to switch off the TV. While leaving the house, the kid questions his behavior. For this Sidharth tells Anjali how the kid is behaving without respect. Then Anjali tells Sidharth that the kid is right,that he should control his anger for which anger management schools can be attended.
Anjali parents want them to come for a function. Anjali mother only calls and speaks to Anjali. Anjali tells her to make her father call Sidharth. The mother agrees. Sidharth keeps a ball for anger management in the workplace by which he concentrate to bring down his anger when he encounter foolish customers.
There are numerous instances where Sidharth's anger takes the better of him. In one such instance where Sidharth shouts at her father, thinking he is a random person calling Anjali on phone, she leaves mentioning she cannot live with such a person. Siddharth offers to drive her home in Masinagudi in Tamil Nadu. On the way, a trucker overtakes their car without warning that almost causes them to crash. A furious Siddharth follows the truck and the incident turns into a road rage. He successfully overtakes the truck but a shaken Anjali begs him to let it go. He obeys her and they continue on their way when Anjali informs him that she is hungry. They stop by a roadside hotel which is run by a ruthless gangster, John, and his henchmen. Sidharth gets in trouble with the hotel staff again for his temper. After the food, as both of them realize they don't cash to pay, the hotel staff suggest one of them go and fetch cash from s nearby ATM. As Anjali cannot stay back alone, she agrees to go even though she is not good at driving their car.
A while after she leaves, Chakkara too leaves the restaurant while a fearful Siddharth tries to contact Anjali. Anjali too is unable to contact Siddharth due to network failure and she fails to find any ATM. Behind her, she notices Chakkara's truck following her and applying horn and irritating in order to scare her so that she cannot drive the car in the middle of the lonely road. She continues driving but is unable to escape as it is a one-way road.
Meanwhile, Siddharth, after waiting for a long time and fearing Anjali's safety, tries to escape the restaurant but is captured by the henchmen and is locked in a room. Anjali keeps on driving with Chakkara right behind her. Another trucker who had noticed them two in the restaurant witnesses this.
Siddharth, now conscious, try to escape from the room and a young boy who was working in the restaurant opens the locked room to help him out. He steps into the middle of a gang fight. At the same time, Chakkara corners Anjali at a bend when her car gets stuck in the mud. He breaks the windows to rape Anjali and as he is about to drag her out of the car, the other trucker arrives on the scene with police which enables Anjali to escape from Chakkara's cruel intentions, who leaves that area seeing the light of police jeep at the far.
Anjali, with the help of the police, arrives back at the restaurant to find John critically injured and Siddharth with a knife. Siddharth is arrested and the police inform Anjali that he will be imprisoned if John dies. But John reports to the police that the previous owner of the hotel came with rowdy gang to beat John ending up in gang fight.
Siddharth and Anjali drive to her house. On the way, she asks him why he had asked her to go alone and he confesses that he was really scared to leave her with them at the restaurant. He admits that it was his temper that got them into trouble and promises to work hard to control his anger issues, even though it cannot be done overnight. On the way, they see Chakkara and his truck which has broken down. Anjali stops the car and Siddharth, as the first step towards controlling his anger, decides to let him go but a furious Anjali refuses to forgive Chakkara. Siddharth steps out of the car with Anjali's existential approval to vent his anger one more time and runs in fury towards Chakkara. Chakkara takes an iron rod in his hand. But Siddharth runs to him while raising his fist and the screen cuts to black, signifying the end of the film.

Cast

The music is composed by Gopi Sunder and the soundtrack was released on 11 March 2016 by Satyam Audios. The song "Take You Down" from the 2015 movie The Man from U.N.C.L.E was used in the trailer for Kali without giving credit to the original composer Daniel Pemberton.

Box office

IBTimes reported that the film collected in the opening day from Kerala; breaking the previous record of Loham to become the highest Malayalam opener. It grossed 5.89 crore after 3 days.
The total earnings of the movie in 27 days from the US box office is, and from 3rd weekend from UK box office. The film is reported to have collected 15.2-16.4 crore from Kerala box office