Identity (2025) Movie Review: Tovino Thomas and Trisha Krishnan's Action Thriller Gets Complicated and Convoluted for Nothing

Talking about the suspension of disbelief, convincing writing can pull a viewer through a film’s flow even with unbelievable amounts of cinematic liberties taken. But what is absolutely necessary is a writing that engulfs the viewer into its world and characters. This is what is amiss in the Akhil Paul-Anas Khan directorial, “Identity” (2025). The trio of Akhil Paul, Anas Khan, and Tovino Thomas in their sophomore outing attempts to build a big-scale action thriller but crumbles at the most fundamental aspect of world and character building. The final product becomes a simple core that gets lost in an overly un-necessarily convoluted screenplay.

“Identity” starts by introducing Tovino’s Haran, a young boy with an obsessive and peculiar personality as an aftermath of abusive parenting by his alcoholic deceased father. Dr.Sudharshan’s words about Haran lure the audience to a psychological premise only to be dissatisfied as the story takes full shape. However, it is quite evident that the makers have done ample research on the medical and psychological conditions at play.

There’s a lot of back and forth happening in “Identity” once an immolation case surfaces and the only witness to the murder, Alisha (Trisha Krishnan) faces a fatal hit-and-run accident leading to memory loss. A Bengaluru-based police officer accompanies Alisha under the victim-protection scheme and lives with her in an apartment next to Haran and his family. Haran, who also happens to be a sketch artist gets toiled in the immolation case as he tries to sketch the murderer whom Alisha saw before her accident. But here’s the catch! Alisha faces a condition called facial memory loss owing to her fatal head injury post-accident.

How Alisha and Haran uncover the murderer behind the immolation and what happens once the pandora’s box gets opened forms the rest of Identity’s story. “Identity” works decently well until the first 30 minutes as it sets up a lot of characters, felonies, mysteries, and medical conditions only for the rest of the film to be entirely different from what was promised. Post the first hour, the film exhausts all of its revelatory gimmicks and the writing team succumbs to the pressure of inserting random twists and tricks to build up the run-time.

At its core, “Identity” is a very simple good guy-bad guy story where the good guy is extraordinarily talented and the bad guy is a smart cookie who can never be out-witted by anyone besides the good guy. But, what unravels onscreen is a convoluted mess where everything goes haywire. The film introduces so many characters at once that it becomes hard to follow and you realize that all of this added to a head-and-tail-less story. Overdone expository dialogues for spoon-feeding make things worse.

The main characters Haran, Alisha, and Allen do not connect and their existence in the story garners no reaction from the point of view of a viewer. For example, the audience roots for what Georgekutty does to protect his family, but the whats and whys of Haran don’t evoke any interest in the viewer. Medical conditions like facial memory loss and obsessive personality disorder once introduced as pivotal become irrelevant to the story and this is where the writing stumbles. The twists don’t land and do not appeal the way they should have considering the circumstances.

Akhil Paul and Anas Khan’s screenplay is convoluted for nothing and pushes the film way lower than where it would have otherwise landed. The sole suspect behind “Identity” not reaching its potential is the writing team’s colossal misunderstanding of the audience’s intelligence. However, some of the action set pieces are very well shot and executed. Akhil George’s cinematography makes the most out of the longer aspect ratio while Chaman Chakko’s editing is jarring and distracting.

Identity (2025) — Another still from “Identity” (2025)

Tovino Thomas effortlessly aces stunt sequences. There is a certain level of ease when he dons the self-aware smart ‘hero’ onscreen. But, considering the peculiar condition of his character, his performance as Haran is snooty, annoying, and boringly so, to look at. He never truly tries to become a character worth rooting for. The added flashback portion to his character rather finds a position in the hall of shame. Come, on! I think we are way past these ‘he is not what he is’ reveals in the movies.

Trisha Krishnan plays Alisha, a righteous journalist on paper. Her character seemingly important, adds nothing to the film beyond countable moments of initial curiosity. An actress of her stature and experience being given such a cardboard character is disappointing, to say the least. The voice that was dubbed for her was beyond distracting. Mandira Bedi is also given barely anything to do onscreen, while Shammi Thilakan seems to be the only actor who could charge your interest in finishing the film. Vinay Rai’s Allen Jacob is a stylish antagonist who doesn’t act and that is likely his only directive from the makers.

To conclude, “Identity” has all the flaws that marred Akhil Paul-Anas Khan’s debut film “Forensic” (2020). Despite flexing a bigger scale, better production design, premise, and larger star cast, “Identity” is a classic case of ambition taking over the story thereby messing up its potential. As the credits roll, what’s left in the audience’s mind is a film that tries a lot to say but never takes off.