Guardian Review: A Casual One-Time Watch!

Prof. Satheesh Paulâ€™s Guardian is an investigation thriller that ticks around a crime and its causatives, marking the first OTT release of 2021 in Malayalam, through a new OTT medium Prime Reels. Produced by Jobin George and Shibu Kuriakose, Saiju Kurup plays the lead role along with a prominent cast like Miya George and Sijoy Varghese. The story takes us through a criminal investigation that runs at a decent pace in the playtime of 130 minutes.

The storyline of Guardian is set among Dr. Arun (Saiju Kurup) and Sruthi (Nayana), who meets each other on a hospital incident, later fall for each other and tie the knots. All goes well between them until a third person interrupts their life, and it eventfully turns into a crime.

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Special Investigation Unit headed by SP Nandakumar (Sijoy Varghese) and ASP Meera Mohandas (Miya George) investigating a man-missing case, gets connected with Sruthi and Dr. Arun. The rest of the story unwinds the mystery behind the crime and the prime motive behind the crime. With a slow and clichÃ© filled first half, the film takes to a more gripping second half.

Prof. Satheesh Paul has done a decent pen-work crafting his directional venture long-time after his last movie, and the script of Guardian has included interesting investigational elements. Same time, the story lack freshness, and the film doesnâ€™t deliver an edge-of-the-seat experience.

On the positives, Jobby James had elevated Guardian with his superb cinematography that blended the beauty of rural areas in a film of the thriller genre. Technically, it was an average experience delivered by Viji Abraham in editing and production design by Artocarpus.

The original background score by Pradeep Tom was mediocre, and Sound Design by Nikhil Sebastian failed to produce a satisfactory experience. Saiju Kurup has done a great performance with much of the screen-time revolving around him, and he has shown a good character to enact a lead role in the movie.

Overall, Guardian lacks new elements despite being a good thriller movie that refines a societal element in an investigational crime thriller. One-time watchable which lacks something to become extraordinary!