Thani Oruvan

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Heather Wilson

Thani Oruvan pits a dedicated police officer against a corrupt scientist in psychological thriller that has plenty of drama and action. The writing collaboration between director Mohan Raja and Subha results in a cleverly plotted story with some unexpected twists, but the real success lies in the detailed development of the two main characters. Neither is completely black or white, although the shades of grey are relatively muted, while the cat and mouse relationship between the two provides good structure to the film. Excellent performances from the whole team but particularly Arvind Swamy as the villain of the piece ensure that Thani Oruvan is a better than average police drama and one that’s well worth a watch.

You know a film is going to be pretty epic when the story starts with a dramatic birth. Sengalvarayan (Thambi Ramaiah) is a party man through and through to the point where it’s more important to him that he ties flags for his leader’s appearance rather than take his heavily pregnant wife to hospital. The leader senses an opportunity for some good publicity and sure enough, the baby is born in the back seat of the politician’s car leading Sengalvarayan and his new son Pazhani to develop a relationship with the man who will later become Chief Minister (Nassar). The significance of these events doesn’t become apparent until later on but they provide an instantly intriguing start to the film.

After the dramatic opening, the story moves to a group of young police officers in training and their vigilante-style activities against the local criminal community. Despite the group’s best efforts, the crooks never stay in jail and Shakthi (Ganesh Venkatraman), Suraj (Harish Uthaman), Kathiresan (Sricharan) and Jana (Rahul Madhav) all look to their friend and natural leader Mithran (Jayam Ravi) for a solution. Naturally Mithran has a plan, having spent the last few years investigating all known criminal activity and discovering that all crimes are interlinked and ultimately committed by a small group of individuals. As a result he’s made it his mission in life to eliminate one of these top 15 criminals responsible for all of the crime in India, and of course his buddies want in on the action. He has a shortlist of three possible men to choose from; Ashok Pandian (Nagineedu), Perumal Swamy (Madhusudhan Rao) and Charles Chelladurai (Saiiju Kurup) who between them (according to Mithran) account for 80% of the criminal activity in the country.

Mithran’s biggest problem is which one to choose, although I’m not entirely sure why he couldn’t decide to eliminate all three given that he has his whole career ahead of him and could work on knocking off one every 10 years or so. Regardless, while he is working out which one to target, he discovers that all three actually work for a much bigger villain – highly respected scientist and Padma Shri awarded Siddharth Abimanyu (Arvind Swamy). Siddharth is known for his work in the pharmaceutical field but in reality he’s the mastermind behind all sorts of criminal activity and not a nice man at all, despite his designer suits, fashion model wife and impressive collection of University degrees.

Siddharth is of course the grown up young boy from the start of the film and his inept father is now the Health Minister in Nassar’s government, allowing Siddharth to do basically whatever he wishes. Mithran and Siddharth cross paths when an American drug company owner comes to India to open access to lifesaving medications – something that Siddharth and his associates will go to any lengths to prevent. Once Siddharth becomes aware of Mithran and his attempts to put him out of business, the contest between the two begins in earnest with each determined to eliminate the other no matter what it takes.

The characterisations are the key here and while Mithran doesn’t have all the answers he uses a methodical approach and informed reasoning to work out what Siddharth will do next. Almost too good to be true, Mithran is depicted as a dedicated and passionate police officer with a strong sense of social justice, who is almost hyper-aware of crime in his surroundings. However as he gets drawn into a battle of wits with Siddharth his obsession threatens to take over his life while his friends and allies become tools to use in his fight. His motto is that a man’s capability is defined by the quality of his enemies and by that measure he needs to be very capable indeed. Mithran’s passion for justice is what makes him get out of bed in the morning, so he has none left over for potential love interest Mahima (Nayantara) and as time goes on, little patience to deal with his friend and colleagues either. These shades of grey give Mithran more credibility and offset his tendency to indulge in pompous and long-winded speeches about truth, justice and the rights of all to obtain cheap pharmaceuticals when required. Jayam Ravi is perfectly capable as Mithran but he is very serious and it would have been good to see an occasional smile outside of the obligatory song with Mahima.

Siddharth is a more cerebral villain than usual and uses his political influence to neutralise any threat from Mithran while his quick reactions and scientific knowledge also stand him in good stead to outwit the police officer at almost every turn. He doesn’t throw tantrums, swear vengeance or send out gangs of thugs as Tamil criminal masterminds are wont to do, instead he simply adapts, moves on and changes direction.

Arvind Swamy is excellent as the criminal mastermind, with the beauty of his characterisation lying in just how very ordinary his Siddharth is. He’s rich – designer suits, trophy wife and beautiful house all attest to how wealthy he is, but on the surface he could be any scientist working on medical breakthroughs with no indication of how cruelly callous he can be when required. Those moments when he casually orders someone’s death or explodes into controlled violence are almost totally unexpected and seem to come out of nowhere, making Siddharth a very effective and chilling villain despite his generally debonair persona.

Nayantara’s character Mahima is interesting too. On one hand she’s the typically dumb love interest who thinks that by following the hero around and declaring her love at every eventual opportunity she will eventually wear him down – and to be fair that is what happens here too. But on the other hand, she’s a forensic scientist who has some good ideas to help Mithran’s investigation, and appears coolly capable and professional in her work. If only Mohan Raja had avoided the ‘love at first sight’ cliché and given Mahima and Mithran a more plausible and realistic romance I would have liked her character more. But Nayantara does give Mahima professional competency and a no-nonsense approach most of the time that fits well with the overall tone of the film.

The rest of the cast are good with Thambi Ramaiah providing some laughs as an inept politician, but mainly giving a further insight into the character of Siddharth. Rahul Madhav is the best of Mithran’s friends, Vamsi Krishna is suitably menacing as Siddharth’s hitman, while Mugdha Godse is good in her brief but important role as Siddharth’s wife. The film looks good too, with effective use of split scenes and an effective mix of technology and good old-fashioned fight scenes. There are a few leaps of faith required but they aren’t too ridiculous and mostly the plot makes sense.

Thani Oruvan is an intelligent thriller with a good mix of action and drama and excellent characterisations. It is a little overlong, but the story keeps moving along at a good pace and like any good page-turner it’s always worth finding out what happens next. Worth watching for Arvind Swamy’s villainous scientist and the psychological cat and mouse game between Siddharth and Mithran. 4 stars.

Gabbar Singh (2012)

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Heather Wilson

Pawan Kalyan fans in Melbourne seem to be the loudest, the most enthusiastic and to prefer shredding rather than recycling their newspapers. The air was full of strips of paper right from the opening moments of Gabbar Singh and the paper storm continued well into the second half. A packed cinema, cheerleaders up the front to lead us in our favourite Pawan Kalyan chants as everyone pushed and shoved their way in and plenty of whistles and cheers meant a great start to another adventure without subtitles.

It’s a novelty to watch a Southern remake of a Hindi film since so often the shoe is on the other foot and after Osthe in Tamil, Gabbar Singh is the Telugu version of Dabangg. The film follows the same basic plot, but many of the other roles have been limited to allow more focus on Pawan Kalyan’s character. It’s his film the whole way through and while he has the charisma and capability to carry it off, the story loses much of its focus by dropping the back stories of Gabbar Singh’s wastrel brother and the conflicts within their family.

We start with young Venkat Ratnam Naidu and his stormy relationship with his adopted father Naidu (Nagineedu) who had married Venkat’s mother Suhasini after she was widowed. Naidu prefers his own son and makes no secret of the fact which gives Venkat a huge chip on his shoulder and a somewhat argumentative personality. Venkat ends up running away from his family, but returns years later as a police officer with the assumed name of his childhood hero, Sholay’s Gabbar Singh. He returns in style, renaming the police station after himself and single-handedly annihilating a gang of bank robbers after chasing after them on horseback so it seems safe to say that he’s not mellowed in the intervening years.

It’s not long before Gabbar Singh clashes heads with local rowdy Sidappa Naidu (Abimanyu Singh) and the feud between the two forms the plot for the rest of the film. In between all the gunfights and general mayhem, Gabbar Singh falls in love with Bhagya Lakshmi (Shruti Hassan) but her role is even more reduced than that of Rajo in Dabangg and Bhagya only appears briefly in a few scenes and a couple of dance numbers. Her friend, ably played by Gayatri, has almost as much screen time and judging by the audience reaction, seems to get the better lines too. Kota Srinivasa Rao pops up as Bhagya’s father but again the role has very little scope and he barely has any input.

Sidappa has political aspirations and Gabbar Singh disrupts his attempts to fund his career through various robberies and corrupt deals. Sidappa’s response is to have his henchmen beat him with clubs which is rather extreme but doesn’t really have too much of an effect on his arch nemesis. Abhimanyu Singh’s Sidappa is a typical Telugu goon and doesn’t have any of the flamboyance or appeal of Sonu Sood’s Chhedi Singh so the villain of the story is rather disappointing. As too is the item song. Although Malaika and the backing dancers did their best, Kevvu Keka just isn’t as catchy as Munni Badnam. I was also very disappointed that Ajay as Gabbar Singh’s brother only made a very brief appearance since he’s one of my favourite actors and I was hoping for more from him.

However the film was made totally worthwhile by a scene where Gabbar Singh forces the usual crowd of rent-a-goons to participate in a session of antakshari. This has to be the funniest piece of cinema I have seen this year and it had the crowd on their feet cheering for more! Generally the dialogue seemed to be of high quality since many of the lines had the audience applauding and both Ali and Brahmi’s comedic roles got plenty of appreciative cheers. Since I didn’t understand the dialogue I focused on the myriad of excellent details instead, such as the gun hood ornaments on Gabbar Singh’s 4WD and the incredibly happy and enthusiastic backing dancers. There is a reason why men in flak jackets are not often seen dancing and it’s a point well illustrated in the first song. Generally though the songs are good and Devi Sri Prasad’s music suits the feel of the film.

There is very little of Chubul Pandey in Pawan Kalyan’s Gabbar Singh. None of the mannerisms are there, although Gabbar Singh has plenty of the same chutzpah. The sunglass tricks are reserved for Brahmi apart from an opening scene where Gabbar Singh tosses his sunnies onto a colleagues face with impressive accuracy. There are a few moments in one song in Switzerland where the normally smooth and co-ordinated Pawan Kalyan does seem to be channelling Salman Khan’s dance style, but thankfully not for long. I did feel sorry for Shruti Hassan dancing in the snow in sandals though.

The reason that Dabangg was such a hit was that it was a Southern style film incorporating plenty of the masala elements which have sadly been missing in Bollywood for some time with a hero who suited the part. Once that novelty element is removed and the film changed to a Southern locale and hero, the story is similar to most other Telugu films. The impact is further lessened by the South’s familiarity with the use of machetes, 4WD’s that roam in packs and acrobatic fight scenes and so Gabbar Singh doesn’t stand out in the same way as Dabangg, although it is more successful than Osthe. Harish Shankar has changed the screenplay to make the film suit his leading man and Pawan Kalyan is excellent as the unorthodox police officer in a rather more orthodox story. Gabbar Singh is still well worth a watch for his performance and I’ll definitely be looking out for the DVD to finally understand the dialogues and for that brilliant antakshari scene!