Salute (2022 Indian film)
Salute is a 2022 Indian Malayalam-language crime thriller film, directed by Rosshan Andrrews and written by Bobby-Sanjay starring Dulquer Salmaan in the lead role as a cop. Produced by Dulquer Salmaan under his banner Wayfarer Films, the film has Aslam K. Purayil as the cinematographer while A. Sreekar Prasad handles the editing and Santhosh Narayanan was signed on to compose the original background score before being replaced by Jakes Bejoy. The film was scheduled for a theatrical release on the occasion of Sankranti in January 2022, but was indefinitely postponed later due to the rise of Omicron cases in India. Later, it was announced that the film would be skipping the theatrical release and decided for a direct-to-streaming release on SonyLIV. It was set to have the world premiere on 18 March 2022, but premiered a day early, on 17 March 2022. The film marks Diana Penty's Malayalam debut. It received positive reviews from critics. Premise
Aravind Karunakaran a sub-inspector, along with his colleagues and superior, Deputy Superintendent Ajith Karunakaran, who is also his brother, arrest a man named Murali, who they are convinced was a murderer they were looking for, forging evidences against him. However, they discover to their shock soon after that the real murderer was someone else. While Ajith and the others are in solidarity over keeping silence about their misconduct, lest they risk their careers, Aravind retires from the force after refusing to be a part of the charade and getting condemned by his colleagues for the same. A few years later, when Aravind returns to his hometown for his niece's wedding, he discovers certain leads that can lead him to the actual culprit, thereby saving Murali. Aravind then rejoins the force and begins to conduct the investigation on his own time, narrowing on a potential serial killer and identity thief who has been behind several murders around Kerala over the years using fake identities, while his brother and his accomplices continue to sabotage his plans by transferring him to the Kasaragod branch only to find out that Aravind was getting closer and closer to the culprit. However by the time Aravind tracks down his house, he finds out that the culprit died in a car accident while using another fake identity and his face is deformed. He nevertheless uses this in order to free Murali while Aravind, Ajith, Pramod and Alex are all suspended. The movie ends with Aravind reading the culprit's letter which acknowledges Aravind's findings but after reading the date of the stamp he realizes that the letter was written before the day the culprit died. 