Careful review; just an underwhelming traffic preach

The Kannada movie U Turn was a success among the viewers mainly because of the way they blended the supernatural elements in to the narrative. But when it comes to U Turn's Malayalam remake​ Careful, the makers decided to reduce that element largely and with lackluster performances and unimpressive tweaks, Careful is dull in it's entirety.

Rachana is an intern in a newspaper. She is trying to do a variety story to get a permanent placement. But unfortunately the path she took had some hardships. With too many unnatural deaths happening around this story, the journey becomes a quest behind a mysterious force. What is that force is what Careful talking about.

The only thing I found good or appreciable in Careful is that it has tried to reinterpret things slightly. Some scenes are reconstructed but some others chopped off. But because of this reinterpretation the film loses it's shape towards the end. It fails to view the whole thing from the female lead's point of view and tries to make it a multi perspective narrative.

Sandhya Raju's performance wasn't that great due to the unimpressive dubbing. Vijay Babu was okay. Asokan's character was unnecessarily comical. Vineeth Kumar looked fine. Joemol makes a comeback in a minimal character. Saiju Kurupu fumbles due to dialogue delivery.

V K Prakash misses the minor elements in U turn that gave certain realness to the narrative. The decision to make it more of a preach rather than a spooky thriller. Rajesh Jayaraman tries to make it a bit different by elongating areas that aren't really that important. And some of them even spoils the freshness of certain events. Dialogues are theatrical. Frames are ordinary and edits are bizarre. Background score is annoyingly excessive.

To conclude, Careful is just an underwhelming traffic preach which fails to have an impact on it's viewers. The message is there for sure, but for a movie that's not enough.