It’s almost impossible to not recall Mani Ratnam’s stellar Nayakan (1987) while watching Malik. You expect someone to ask a frail Sulaiman “Neenga nallavara kettavara?” while he’s held in police custody. But besides the moral ambiguity of Kamal Haasan’s Velu Naicker, it’s the complexity of Sulaiman’s circumstances, his religious identity, his inter-faith marriage, constantly changing relationships that make Malik an interesting watch. Also, Narayanan dials down on creating a hero out of Sulaiman. The lensing of his character during his messiah-like sequences are distant, and not designed to make him larger than life, and rightly so. But then does it also make Sulaiman less endearing to the audience thus cutting down in our emotional investment in him?
Fahadh is intense as Sulaiman, though his simmering, grim demeanour for most of the film could be criticised as one-note. Nimisha too keeps a constant stern look and tone as an older Roseline. The larger cast including Dileesh Pothan,…