As the hero gets out of the MUV after a longish drive through the streets of Kerala's [Images] capital city Trivandrum, the audience sits up and takes notice.

Shaji's camera uses split screens, slow-motion and freeze frames to establish immediate rapport between the star, Mohanlal, and the audience.

The hero is a tech-savvy cop who heads the state's Anti-Terrorist Cell. Calm, composed, prone to carrying around a toolkit that embraces every device known to forensic science, Mohanlal lives the role of Baba Kalyani, in the film directed by Shaji Kailas.

The set up has the hero unearthing a terrorist plot that is slated to rock the city of Kochi on December 6. He seeks a transfer to that city, and goes there under cover as the ACP in charge of Law and Order; his entire team, too, is posted in different sections of the city.

The action thus shifts to Kochi, where Baba Kalyani and his men work to unravel the plot while simultaneously crossing swords with political bigwigs whom he had ruffled in the past. A sympathetic mother figure in the form of his landlady is a bonus; having to go up before the Women's Commission on charges of outraging the modesty of a lady lawyer in public an added handicap.

Gradually, the team picks apart the plot: the fundamentalist angle, counterfeit currency racket, the ISI hand and the local support, all dovetailing into a serial blast conspiracy like the many others that have rocked the country in the recent past.

That said, there is little by way of suspense, or even of investigative work -- Baba Kalyani just has this knack of putting the pieces of the puzzle in place as he goes along. This negative in SN Swamy's screenplay causes the narrative to lose its grip; the story often meanders into unnecessary characters and situations that have no connection with the final outcome. Thus, the whole film becomes an episodic, laudatory character sketch of Baba Kalyani.

What rescues the film is Mohanlal -- his surety and confidence makes you almost believe the improbable storyline and buy into his superman image. In a sense, making the hero a touch more fallible could have enhanced the story and made it more believable, but that was not to be.

Given how the lead character is built up, other characters played by the likes of Murali, Biju Menon and Jagathy Sreekumar get to shine only in very brief flashes, reducing them to appendages to a story that focusses exclusively on the hero.

Technically, the film passes muster, but coming from a veteran like Shaji Kailas, the film ends up as standard fare. On the positive side, Baba Kalyani makes us forget the dismal Natturajavu, the previous film of the Mohanlal-Shaji Kailas team.

Rediff Rating: