Movie Review : Polar

DIRECTOR - Jonas Akerlund
CAST - Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Katheryn Winnick

Polar is cinematic adaptation of graphic novel by same name written by Victor Santos. A story of a sharp, ruthless, yet calm minded assassin Duncan Vizla (Kaiser Black),played by Mads Mikkelsen , who is chased by teen squad of Damocles Corp., organization of assassins. That's the summary of what this story is all about, and that's what you get see throughout the runtime. There are few parallel as well as past stories which are brought during the run time, which are led and terminated there itself. Overall, it's an action movie, if you are looking for depths, darkness, you may not find it, 'cause it's screenplay, written by Jayson Rothwell, doesn't take to those dimensions. Graphic novel had a grey side to each character, some characters stories narrated with a lot of shadow, which the movie, however, has none of it. Writing looks very immature with scenes which had absolutey no use being introduced, and scenes with no sensebility, written as a purpose for comedy, simply runs flat and unnoticed. For example, there is a scene in which Duncan kills people in India, and a child asks, 'What does people do, when a person dies in India?', and Duncan says "They are burnt, and their wives are also burnt with them". Sati ritual have ended years ago, but still there is a lack of information which is neither comical or sensible.

Apart from this there is Vanessa Hudgen playing the role of Camille, a mysterious neigbour of Duncan, who seems to be shy, and introvert. But frequent meetings in shops, bars, make them to talk each other and makes a really good relation between each other. Vanessa has done an amazing job, yet she had very limited screen time, but she makes the most of it, and would be looking forward to see more from here in future. The bonding between Duncan and Camille had maturity and stabilty, and is something extra you get from the movie. Katheryn Winnick as Vivian, who is a handler for Duncan's job and person responsible for giving him money after his kill, and coordinator of killers, who are chasing Duncan.

Katheryn, has been popular from History TV's series 'Vikings', playing as Lagertha, a tough and strong Shield Maiden of Vikings. Vivian is similar to that of Lagertha, but here she is not killinng anyone directly but making others do. She is one of the smarter characters in the story and Katheryn has done justice to that role. She never lets you down, though, it would be better if she would have been higlighted more, somewhere her role is jeopordized due to that of Mads Mikkelsen. Mads Mikkelsen is a person with calm, plain face and in most of the characers he has played, have similar characteristics, and Polar also gives him similar character to portray. But to have a straight face and kill people without giving any expressions of anger, or fury, is tricky job, but Mikkelsen has done a fine job. He is one reason , you should watch this movie for, and he doesn't diassapoint.

Jonas Akerlund, who in past have made music videos, and won a Grammy for them, made his second feature film, Polar, but the direction is very loose, unable to connect scenes to scene, it looks like few scenes were made bloody intentionally, just to look cool. The direction has a very modern approach to story, with close up killing shots, overemphasized sexual scenes, and silence to showcase seriousness. The view looks cartoonish, especially when shooter kills or scene with butt-licking and butt-slapping. The graphic novel had a dark approach ,but a movie in contrast have a brighter and more comic-like illustration of narrative. Action scenes with Mikkelsen have been done very well and smartly too, it's something you watch it for.

All in all, it's an action masala as one can say in Bollywood, Action and Mikkelsen is what you look forward in this movie, performance by Winnick is appreciable, but would have loved more maturity in writing and direction.

Rating - 3/5