Jithu Ashraf’s ‘Officer on Duty’ works at a generic level, but this crime drama could have been so much more
- Trinity Auditorium
- Mar 19
- 1 min read
Kunchacko Boban gives a strong central performance, and the technical departments pitch in, too. But the writing remains superficial. The rest of this review may contain spoilers.
There’s a fabulous shot that opens Officer On Duty. It’s a single take, and we find ourselves looking at a man who’s seated at his desk. As the camera moves back, the man rises. We see he is wearing a police uniform, but only the shirt. The camera keeps pulling away and the man follows, taking us from the room the desk was in to the living room. Then he does something we don’t expect, and the camera does something even more unexpected. It turns to the left, and we see… well, I cannot reveal what we see, but it is one of the most beautifully cinematic openings in recent memory. The film is a mystery of sorts. It involves this cop, and what the camera sees after it does that left turn. It’s a kind of “prologue” – a setup – achieved solely through cinematographic means.
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