12th Man review: Mohanlal returns as a policeman in a too-long murder mystery that borrows from world cinema

Actor Mohanlal in '12th Man' (Image: Twitter/MohanlalMFC)

Director Jeethu Joseph is known for his crime and mystery thrillers, and this time round he has teamed up with Malayalam star Mohanlal once again to give us 12th Man. The movie is a murder mystery which revolves around a group of 11 friends who head to a resort to celebrate the upcoming wedding of one their friends. So who is the 12th man in this group? Evidently, Mohanlal.

The entire story has been woven around these 11 people, five couples and one single lady, who have known each other since their college days. A drunken, unwieldy D.S.P. Chandrashekhar (Mohanlal) - the only other guest at the resort - ends up being a nuisance to the group of friends.

What we learn on the first night is that the relationships between the 11 people are not all fun and happiness when they decide to play a game. They all hand in their phones for an hour and allow all personal messages and calls to be read/heard by the entire group to prove that they are honest with nothing to hide. This is when things slowly start to unravel and secrets start to tumble out of the closet. Suddenly, things take a turn for the worse when one of the people in the group ends up dead.

With a run time of 2 hours and 43 minutes, director Jeethu Joseph and scriptwriter K.R. Krishnakumar have created a movie that takes place over 24 hours and keeps us guessing as to which of the characters could commit a murder and why.

To create 11 characters each with a backstory and weave in a number of issues like toxic relationships, blackmail, mental health issues, financial woes, and other aspects, is quite commendable. Krishnakumar has to be applauded for ensuring that there are no loose ends and the issues and people have been connected seamlessly.

The story does have its inspirations from several films like the French film Nothing to Hide (adapted from 2016 Italian film Perfect Strangers) where a group of friends get together for dinner and decide to play a game where they share all personal calls, texts and mails. There are shades of Knives Out as well, in that the entire movie takes place in a resort with an investigator trying to solve the whodunnit. However, Jeethu Joseph has totally customised the movie for the Malayalam audience, and with Mohanlal essaying the lead man, the twists and turns in this film are aplenty and keep the audience engaged.

All the 11 actors pitted against Mohanlal have delivered good performances and these include Unni Mukundan, Sshivada, Aditi Ravi, Anu Sithara, Anusree, Leona Lishoy, Priyanka Nair, Rahul Madhav, Chandunath, and Saiju Kurup. The length of the movie is a bit of an issue, as at 2 hours 43 minutes, it’s too long given its slow narrative. The director could have trimmed some of the portions in the first half when he is building up the characters. The interrogation style, the narration and clever writing in the second half is the crux of this Jeethu Joseph-Mohanlal film and that is what makes the movie a compelling watch.

12th Man released on Disney+Hotstar on May 20, 2022.

All the 11 actors pitted against Mohanlal have delivered good performances. (Image: Twitter/iampriyankanair)