As the first few frames of the Tamil film, Sila Nerangalil (Sometimes...) flit through old and yellowed newspaper reports, you sit up eagerly, waiting for the story to unfold. And New Light productions venture, director by veteran Malayalam director Jayaraj does keep you at the edge of your seat which is an accomplishment in itself.

When a dazed-looking girl (Navya Nair) lands up at an institution in Udayagiri, a relic of the 2004 tsunami, there's no clue as to her whereabouts or her family. Taking pity on the hapless girl who wakes up every night with visions of a man stabbing her with a pair of gleaming scissors, the institutions' chief hands her over to Jo (Vincent Ashokan), who is in-charge of the well-being of the inmates.

Together, they try and solve the meaning of her terrible nightmares with the help of Dr Gopalakrishnan (Raghuvaran, with his trademark staccato dialogue). They end up with the discovery that her dreams are connected to a terrible and gruesome murder that occurred forty years ago; which is of her own.

Forty years ago, she was Thamarai. And her husband Chidambaram had been hanged for allegedly killing her. But what really did happen on the gruesome night that she was hacked to death?

So far, so good.

The plot is interesting, the characters are well-etched, and there's sufficiently enough going on with the murder story that makes you wonder exactly who the culprit it is. Now, if only they'd concentrated on little points like dialogue delivery and a taut screenplay. The costumes are straight from the sixties, and everyone dances around a lot which might be logical for cinema, but isn't for real life.

Vincent Ashokan, son of veteran actor Ashokan with a quirky smile carries himself through most situations, action or sentimental. When he burns up in jealousy over his young wife's infatuation with the famous singer Madhavan [Images], he excels. It's his beardly incarnation that falls a little flat, somehow. The sixties get-up makes him look good (except that suspenders went out of fashion in the forties). And the bit where he himself slips into hypnotic mode produces a wave of laughter from the audience.

Navya Nair looks at everything with huge eyes and does a creditable job as the harassed wife who wears puffed blouses and loads of jewellery. She's suitably dazed in the first half, and recovers a little towards the end ... but we are not told why her past is never.

It is clearly Raghuvaran who has got the lion's share of the movie. Very much in his element, his speeches in the first half don't make much sense, until the loose threads are tied up in the end.

Ramesh Khanna as the hapless photographer produces a few laughs.The editing's slick and fast, without unnecessary twist and dialogues. Shreekanth Deva's efforts make you tap your feet to a few numbers. You only wish, that more of the sixties had been given importance though the climax makes you really sit up.

Altogether, a nice fare if you're in the mood for a good old-fashioned crime thriller.

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