While whodunnits are quite rare in Tamil, Malayalam cinema has had quite few of them. Actors like Mammootty and Suresh Gopi have donned the role of the investigator numerous times to flush out the criminal. Most of these movies are well-done and contain some genuine surprises. Unmai, the dubbed version of the Malayalam film The Truth, is one such whodunnit that features an interesting investigation into the assasination of the state's Chief Minister and packs its surprise in the motive behind the crime.

The Chief Minister(Balachandra Menon) of the land has earned several enemies both inside and outside his party through his actions against the corrupt. A woman posing as a reporter from Bombay, engineers a bomb blast at one his election meetings, killing him and the others who were with him. With the local police, led by SP Meena Nambiar(Vani Viswanath), not very effective in solving the case, a Special Investigation Team from Delhi, led by Bharath(Mammootty) takes over.

As in all good whodunnits, the identity of the villain here is a good surprise. The bad guy is someone who is familiar to us and when we look back, there have been some subtle clues along the way that point to his guilt. But what really separates this movie from others in the genre is the motive behind the killing. The switching of tracks is a pleasant surprise and leads to a motive that is quite different from the motives usually associated with the criminals in such movies.

The investigation itself is picturised very well with believable clues and a logical way of piecing them together to reconstruct the crime. The real identity behind the the killer is a little obvious to us but the way Mammootty unmasks her is still very clever. The killer too is no fool and the way the photos from the camera found at the scene of the crime are used is another of the surprises. There are quite a few interesting twists and turns along the way and things are wrapped up neatly at the end with Mammootty's monologue that unmasks the villain.

The most appreciable aspect of the movie is that it sticks to the story at hand with no unnecessary diversions (the fact that it is dubbed from Malayalam is quite possibly the reason for this). Mammootty is not burdened with a heroine and consequently, there is no romance. Naturally there are no duets either. So there is no slackening in the pace throughout the movie.

Mammootty has played the cop role quite a few times in the past and breezes through the role. The fact that he himself has dubbed for the Tamil version helps us forget the fact that we are watching a dubbed flick. Vani Viswanath plays a cop with a feminist chip on her shoulder. Among other recognisable faces, Divya Unni has a small role as Mammootty's assistant while Murali, who appeared as Jyothika's father in Dum Dum Dum, plays the DSP. Thilakan plays an astrologer with some psychic powers.