By the fourth film, you’d expect a mystery franchise to start repeating itself. Eken Babu started out as a web-series detective, then made the jump to cinemas with The Eken in 2022, followed by Ruddhyashash Rajasthan and Benaras e Bibhishika. Kerala-e Kurukshetra lands in theatres just in time for Durga Puja, and it mostly avoids the usual trappings.
The film opens with the disappearance of Mihir Sen, played by Kamaleswar Mukherjee, which sets off a chain of events and pulls our detective far from home into Kerala. The first few minutes hook you in, and that matters in a mystery, where an early grip on the audience buys the film patience for the twists to come.
Director Joydeep Mukherjee has said in interviews that the story and screenplay are more complex than anything the franchise has attempted, and that this complexity is exactly why it became a film rather than another web season.
The narrative has the room it needs, the mystery has real layers, and the film rewards viewers who stay alert instead of waiting to be told the answers. Mukherjee has also said he tries to make each new story feel different from the last, so audiences forget the previous ones while watching. By that measure he has succeeded. This does not feel like a rerun in a new location.
Anirban Chakrabarti has played Eken Babu long enough that coasting would be easy. He doesn't. He has spoken about the caution required in playing one character repeatedly, keeping him recognisable while adding a few new elements each time, and about his responsibility as a franchise lead to make each film surpass the last. That discipline shows. The quirks fans love are intact, but there is fresh texture in how he plays them.
Without revealing anything, this is also the film in which he surprises you most. He is convincing and genuinely menacing in a way the series has not asked of him before, and we came out wanting to see him take on more characters like this.
Ritwick Chakraborty: The surprise element
Ritwick Chakraborty plays Irfan Fazil, an intelligent and dangerous terrorist at the centre of the mystery. He avoids the usual villain theatrics and plays the role with controlled, quiet menace. He is excellent, as he usually is, and he gives Eken an opponent who feels like a real threat.
Kamaleswar Mukherjee's Mihir Sen carries the film's emotional hook, since his absence drives everything that follows. The supporting cast, including Ambarish Bhattacharya, Arna Mukhopadhyay and Subrat Dutta, plays characters whose lives get tangled in the film's web of secrets, shifting loyalties and hidden agendas.
Raima Sen also stars in the new Eken movie
Raima Sen is the one casting that doesn't quite pay off, through no fault of her own. Her character, Dipa, is set up as enigmatic, but she ends up with little to do. The role feels like an add-on rather than a necessary part of the story, and it is hard to say what the film would have lost without her.
My favourite thing about Kerala-e Kurukshetra is what it avoids. Indian films set outside their home region often reduce the location to a postcard and its people to caricature. This film does neither. Much of it was shot in Kerala itself, and the place feels like a real, functioning setting rather than scenic wallpaper.
Malayalam is spoken by several characters, often at length, and it is never played for cheap laughs. Even where language feeds the humour, most notably in Eken Babu’s quirky, twisty Bengali proverbs, the comedy comes from his own eccentric wordplay. It lands as funny, never as disrespectful. Regional languages have been treated as comic fodder in mainstream cinema for decades, and it is refreshing to see a film that respects the language and the people who speak it, while keeping the franchise’s sense of fun intact
In fact, nothing in the film felt stereotypical to me, whether in the characters, the setting or the humour, and that restraint gives the whole film more credibility. With so much of the film shot on location in Kerala, the camerawork gives the setting a presence of its own, and it keeps the film looking good even in its quieter stretches.
Beyond Dipa's underwritten role, which is the film's clearest weak spot, this is a tight, assured piece of work. In a story packed with secrets, a character who contributes so little stands out, and a sharper edit of her track would have served the film better.
Who plays Eken's wife Khuku?
A final glimpse of Eken's wife Khuku, seen only from behind, will have devoted fans debating it on the way out of the theatre. Khuku has always been a presence felt more than seen in Eken's world, so this brief, deliberate shot could be a promise. Whether it points to a bigger role in the next film is anyone's guess, but it is hard to believe it is accidental.
The Eken: Kerala-e Kurukshetra is a confident, intelligent thriller, released just in time for Puja. It hooks you early, enlarges the franchise's canvas without losing what made Eken Babu popular, gives its lead actor and its villain room to impress, and treats its setting and language with respect. Raima Sen's underused role keeps it from being flawless, but it is the strongest argument yet for taking Eken to the big screen, and it is well worth watching in a theatre this festive season.
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