As B Unnikrishnan’s action thriller Christopher drew to an end, I was half worried that goondas would spring from under the seats and bash my head in. After all, I am a female audience member and I had just spent 2 hours and 30 minutes of my time watching a film where every woman character of prominence is either assaulted, raped or murdered. Only one lady police officer is allowed to survive till the end of the film, and that’s because someone has to admiringly take notes on Christopher’s unconventional policing methods.

The film, written by Udaykrishna, is about a vigilante cop who has appointed himself as the guardian of all women. Mammootty plays Christopher with a stoic air – whether Unnikrishnan directed him to do this or he realised that he had walked into a terrible film after a dream run last year, is difficult to know. But there is Christopher, stone-faced and trigger-happy, staging encounters whenever he pleases because the system doesn’t work. Why is he in the system then? I guess the answer is because he gets free bullets? Perks of policing.

The film opens with a tattooed man (Vinay Rai) doing push-ups. You instantly know that this is the alpha villain. But before the battle between Christopher and the alpha, the film takes you through a torturous series of beta and gamma villains. All of them are rapists, and the camera makes sure you watch their deeds in graphic detail. Shots of women screaming, women begging for mercy, women with their clothes torn off, women being pinned to the floor, women being hit with objects, women lying in pools of blood, women with their skin burnt.

This horrendously insensitive trauma porn is meant to make us feel that Christopher’s actions are justified. So, when Christopher walks in slow motion shots and fires his gun to a background score that must be audible in Mars, we’re meant to feel vindicated. What’s actually on display, however, is the writer and director’s complete disengagement with discussions on sexual violence; how can the answer to an issue caused by toxic masculinity, also be toxic masculinity? The laziness in not attempting to understand why gender-based violence happens, is inexcusable. In one scene, a woman police officer even says that rape is mostly an impulsive crime. It is not. Data on sexual violence has repeatedly shown that in a vast majority of the cases, the victim and the perpetrator know each other; meaning, the perpetrator has had the time and information to plan an attack.

Strictly speaking though, one shouldn’t be surprised by the frivolous treatment of sexual violence in Christopher. Avenging rape has always been a favourite onscreen pastime of our superstars; it is merely a peg for them to hang their masculinity. Christopher, however, has quite a few talented women actors in the cast, and may momentarily fool you into believing that they have some value to add.

There’s Home Secretary Beena (Sneha), who was once married to Christopher; IPS officer Sulekha (Amala Paul), who is investigating Christopher’s encounter killings; and activist-lawyer Amina (Aishwarya Lekshmi), who grows up under Christopher’s care. There’s also Vasanthi, better known as Agent Tina from Vikram, who plays a cop. But they’re all satellites to Christopher, who always knows what’s best for them. He’s a ladies’ man but not in the way you think. So, we have top angle shots of Christopher, low angle shots of Christopher, close-ups of Christopher; even when a scene doesn’t require it, the camera does a dance-y shake, to make us feel excited about Christopher. It’s like watching a film made by a squirrel on a sugar rush.

Shine Tom Chacko is yet again stuck in a character that seems to have been modelled on his real life personality. He’s good, but we’ve seen him do this so many times now that there’s nothing new in the performance. Others in the cast like Siddique and Dileesh Pothan are adequate in roles that don’t demand much from them. There’s only so much you can do in such a badly written film anyway.

Bereft of any originality, Christopher is utterly forgettable. To sit through it, you need a strong dose of the stoicism that Mammootty wears all through the film. And then some.

Sowmya Rajendran writes on gender, culture, and cinema. She has written over 25 books, including a nonfiction book on gender for adolescents. She was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar for her novel Mayil Will Not Be Quiet in 2015.

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.