The unravelling of SI Yohannan (a terrific Dileesh Pothan) in Ronth, written and directed by Shahi Kabir, is subtle yet deeply affecting. Kabir, known for his ability to mine complexity from morally grey spaces, lets Yohannan’s contradictions simmer without judgment. At first glance, Yohannan seems like a man split in half—on one side, he’s the seasoned cop who tenderly prepares meals for his emotionally distant and suspicious wife, a small yet telling act of quiet endurance. On the other hand, he is curt, authoritarian, and often cruel in his treatment of his junior, CPO Dinanath (Roshan Mathew). His ridicule feels unnecessarily harsh, and his dominance reeks of institutional arrogance. It is easy, then, to sympathise with Dinanath—an earnest, hot-headed officer who still believes in the sanctity of the khaki, someone who wants to fight the rot from within.

When Yohannan casually accepts a bribe from a priest and brushes off Dinanath’s clear disapproval, it further drives a wedge between them. The scene lays bare a generational and ideological divide between someone worn down by years of systemic failure and someone who still believes in change. But Kabir doesn’t let us settle comfortably into this binary. Through a series of small but significant moments, the dynamics begin to shift. Dinanath, though still resistant, starts observing Yohannan not just as a flawed man but as a product of an unforgiving machinery. He begins to grasp that beneath Yohannan’s caustic wit and dispassionate manner lies a man deeply scarred—someone who long ago learned that vulnerability has no place in a world where justice is a commodity.

Yohannan’s brusqueness, then, becomes recontextualized as self-preservation. That’s when Dinanath realises that the enemy is not always the man in front of you, but the invisible, corrosive power structures that turn even the most well-intentioned officers into cogs. The mentor-protégé dynamic evolves into something messier, more human, rooted in reluctant understanding rather than admiration. It’s this subtle........

© Mathrubhumi English