Thani Oruvan - review

Thani Oruvan - After a long time a movie that impressed.

Director of the movie is well known for his penchant for remaking telugu hits in tamil. This being his first ever original script and the kind of reception for it must be encouraging for him. Supposedly four years in making, it goes on to prove that be it Holly Bolly or Tolly, whatever be the wood, the script is always the king. 

The movie has a slightly different plot. The hero and villain are no way linked like other movies. They dont have a vengeance angle, family feud or any other previously seen story lines where their paths meet. The honest cop of a hero "selects" a villain of his match by implicitly using 80:20 principle. By negating the core evil he would address 80% of the problems and remaining 20 can be addressed on priority. He prepares charts and burns midnight oil, literally, to track the villain with slight similarities to Gajini movie. The villain is not your every movie, sickle weilding paan chewing masala don. He is pretty suave and probably the smartest ever to don the screen in a long time. He matches wit for wit with the hero and is quite honest and unapologetically ruthless. The best punchlines of the movie are reserved for him. Somehow, more than the hero, the punches are really felt when mouthed by villains. 

A pleasant plus for the movie is Nayanthara. She is all beauty with brains and provides comic yet coy relief in the otherwise serious movie. She looks much better and younger than ever and the song picturization to justify her presence also are cleverly placed not to hinder the movie flow. Jayam Ravi does a neat job as honest and upright officer. He seems to fit this role well in his previous movies as well, be it Peraanmai or Nimirnthu Nil.

People go gaga over Arvindh swamy's villain act. One thing that is worrying is, while Jeyam Ravi's character oozes with positiveness and is the embodiment of sacrifice and goodness, not a soul speaks of that character. Is it just because of him being outperformed by swamy or are the movie watching public really turning towards negative characters more than positive ones?? Same feeling i had when people whistled and laughed at Siddarth, when he asks for a break to charge his battery while filming Bobby Simha and his men torturing people in Jigarthanda and when they hooted for Karunakaran in "Soodhu Kavvum" while his earnest and honest dad was treated like a clown. Atleast that was the very premise of the movie. But similar reaction for a mainstream commercial movie like Thani Oruvan is really worrying signs for our society.

Gils verdict : A pretty decent movie with a racy second half. No wonder its a blockbuster already.