Solamante Theneechakal movie review: Better than Lal Jose’s recent works, but not near his best

The bee in the original story about King Solomon was used as a metaphor for how seemingly insignificant creatures can come to be of help to an all-powerful ruler. In Solamante Theneechakal (Solomon’s Honeybees), scriptwriter P. G. Prageesh approaches the story from a more literal sense, when referring to it at the fag end of a crime investigation as the investigator is about to point his finger at the actual suspect.

The investigation comes only much later in the film, which begins with the tale of friendship between two women – Suja (Darshana S. Nair), a traffic cop, and Glyna (Vincy Aloshious), a civil police officer. Suja, who is fed up with the traffic police duty and wishes to join her friend as a police officer, falls in love with Sarath (Shambhu), a driver for high-end rental cars. Things begin to fall apart for Suja and Glyna following a murder in which Sarath could be one of the suspects.

Perhaps, the only time director Lal Jose has tried anything close to a crime drama in his career, spanning 24 years and 27 films, was with Classmates, one of the biggest successes of his career. Over the past few years, he has not been in the best of forms, with a string of disappointing films. In Solamante Theneechakal, he returns to making a crime drama after a long time.

Despite the acting talents of the two leading women, whom the director picked through a talent hunt show, some of the initial scenes to establish their friendship seem forced, especially a song sequence for their ‘Insta sisters’ page. The film does not pick up pace until the arrival of Circle Inspector Solomon (Joju George) to investigate the crime, almost near the interval point.

Though there are some effective twists and turns written into the script, the investigation part might pale in comparison to some of the more slick crime thrillers being made these days due to the way it has been translated on the screen.

The tension really does not build, despite there being occasions for the same. Red herrings are aplenty, and most people would not fall for any of them except the final one which was nicely pulled off. The fact that this possibility lasts only a few minutes, before the actual suspect is revealed, also might have worked in its favour.

Although Joju George carries much of the film, some of the young crop of actors, including Vincy, Darshana, Shambhu and Addis, show promise. Although Solamante Theneechakal does not attain the highs that Lal Jose touched with Classmates, it is certainly a notch better than many of his recent works.