Abraham Ozler is a 2024 Indian Malayalam-language crime thriller film co-produced and directed by Midhun Manuel Thomas and written by Randheer Krishnan.[1][2][3] The film stars Jayaram in the titular role alongside Mammootty, Anaswara Rajan, Anoop Menon, Arjun Ashokan, Arya Salim, Senthil Krishna, Jagadish, Saiju Kurup and Dileesh Pothan in supporting roles.[4] The film revolves around ACP Abraham Ozler’s efforts to investigate the death of an IT employee and capture a serial killer.
Director John Manthrikkal narrated a story to Thomas, which was written by Dr. Randheer Krishnan. Impressed with the story, Thomas decided to direct the project. The film was officially announced in May 2023. Principal photography commenced on 20 May 2023. It was shot extensively in Thrissur, Palakkad, Coimbatore and Wayanad. It was wrapped up by mid-November. The music was composed by Midhun Mukundan while the cinematography was handled by Theni Eswar and editing by Shameer Muhammed.
Abraham Ozler was initially set to be released on 25 December 2023, but the release date was postponed to 11 January 2024. The film received positive reviews from critics with praise for its acting, technical aspects and musical score, but criticized its script and direction. The film earned around ₹40.53 crore worldwide, emerging to become Jayaram’s highest grossing film.[5][6]
ACP Abraham Ozler finds his life shattered when a fake police call lures him away, leading to the brutal death of his wife Aneesha and daughter. The main culprit is Vineeth, who wanted to exact revenge on Ozler for arresting him in a narcotics case. Vineeth confesses to killing Aneesha and Jenny, cutting them into pieces and burying the parts somewhere in a forest but says he doesn’t remember exactly where because he was on a narcotics high at that time. Ozler gets distraught about Aneesha and his daughter’s death and struggles to find closure because their bodies are never found.
Three years later, Ozler, who is haunted by hallucinations and insomnia, investigates a series of murders with his subordinates SI Sijo and Divya. The two killers, one driving a pickup truck and the other posing as a surgeon, leave cryptic notes at the crime scenes. As the team unravels the connections, they discover Krishnandas, a man using an artificial larynx, as a key suspect. They also learn that Krishnadas, once a child prodigy singer, had lost his voice in a failed surgery.
Delving into the past, Ozler discovers a shared history among the victim’s parents: Shivakumar and Selvaraj were postgraduate medical students at Kozhikode Medical College in 1989. Shivakumar, Selvaraj, retired police surgeon Xavi and Dr. Alexander were all found to have been friends and PG batchmates. They were heard to have gotten into an accident, after which they parted ways.
Krishnadas is captured while he kidnaps “Alexander” (Dileesh Pothan). But even as Krishnadas is in Ozler’s custody, Dr. Xavi is kidnapped. As the truth surfaces, the real Alexander is revealed to be another person (Mammootty). Alexander is arrested as soon as he inflicts the first cut on Xavi’s body in order to kill him.
Once in custody, Alexander narrates the flashback to Ozler and his team. Alexander was a dedicated PG student at surgery department of Kozhikkode Medical College. Xavi, a fellow PG student of surgery, is not as good a surgeon as Alexander, and he is jealous of Alexander. Shivakumar, a PG student of General Medicine, despises Alexander for being in a relationship with MBBS student Suja Jayadev (Anaswara Rajan) whom Shivakumar had been pursuing. Selvaraj, a PG student of anaesthesia, and a junkie who used to be on drugs even while on duty, was found to use drugs from operation theatre stock by Alexander, and Alexander’s reporting of the same led to Selvaraj’s dismissal. Professional jealousy of Xavi, fuelled by Shivakumar, led to Xavi orchestrating a failed surgery resulting in Krishnadas losing his voice forever. Alexander reports Xavi’s intentional act to seniors, and Xavi, as well as Alexander being the first assistant at the surgery, are suspended from college. Xavi is blacklisted by his professors and told he shall never be allowed to do a surgery on a living human being again. Selvaraj, Xavi and Shivakumar then goes ahead to severely injure Alexander, leading to him falling into coma. They then made up an accident scene, faked injuries on themselves, and told everyone that a drunk Alexander took them for a drive and crashed the car. Alexander lay in vegetative state for months and Suja went into deep depression seeing this. One day, doctors suggested that they remove Alexander’s life support and allow him to die peacefully. A depressed Suja overhears this and in a fit of emotion, commits suicide jumping in front of a moving bus. In a fateful irony, Alexander survives life support removal and with years and years of nursing care, regains movement, although he had dissociative amnesia, causing him to forget most of the events of his PG time, including the acts of Xavi and his gang, as well as about Suja. 3-4 years before the murders, Alexander sees a TV programme featuring Krishnadas, wherein some old videos of him singing are shown. This triggers his memories and Alexander slowly recollects all the past events. He meets up with Krishnadas who had become wayward after losing his voice, and together they plan the murders. The motive behind the murders becomes clear: Alexander and Krishnadas want to seek revenge on those who ruined their lives.
Xavi meets Alexander and Krishnadas in Ozler’s custody and has no remorse at all. A surprising turn occurs as Xavi dies on stage at the release ceremony of his autobiography, with forensic surgeon revealing that Alexander had poisoned him with a bacteria-infected surgical ink before making cuts on his body. Later, it is shown that Shivakumar committed suicide out of remorse and grief, and that Selvaraj became an alcoholic and his wife abandoned him realising that he caused their son’s murder.
On his routine visit to Vineeth in prison, Ozler unexpectedly encounters Alexander and Krishnadas in the prison. Alexander cryptically utters “Bone Residue”, hinting at an unresolved truth about Ozler’s family. Ozler confronts Vineeth, realizing that there is no bone residue on the weapon he allegedly used in the murders. This revelation challenges the assumption that Vineeth killed and buried Ozler’s family. Vineeth challenges Ozler to dig deeper for the truth.
