Film: Thamizhuku Enn Ondrai Azhuthavum
Director: Ramprakash Rayappa
Cast: Nakul, Dinesh, Sathish, Bindu Madhavi, Aishwarya Dutta, Urvashi, Ajay, Shalu Shammu
Set against the backdrop of an impending terrorist attack, the film tracks the happenings in the lives of three unrelated characters. The deftness and confidence with which the director moves his narration belies the fact that this is his debut venture. The screenplay is engaging, with the characters well-fleshed out, and there is an element of suspense with humour laced throughout.
It’s a multiple narrative style that the director adopts. Three unrelated stories run on parallel tracks, unconnected, but influencing each other towards the end. So, we have the story of Vasanth (Nakul), a genius in scientific technology, inventing various gadgets like his ‘solar’ bike. Vasanth reminds one of Aamir Khan’s character in 3 Idiots.
His romance with Harini (debutant Aishwarya fitting in suitably), has a touch of freshness. Amusing are the scenes of interaction between him and Urvashi who plays his mother. Though appearing for brief moments, Urvashi peps up the scene. Nakul gets into the skin of his role. It’s his involvement and conviction that make the whole scene on his terrace where he tries to restore the mobile tower connections, believable.
His best role to date, it should be a turning point in his career. Mukil (Dinesh) works for a construction firm and his romance with Simi (Madhavi) is quirky and amusing. The track of Raja, (Sathish) a call taxi driver, is the funnier one.
His interaction with Maha (Shammu), a quirky girl who takes a ride in his taxi, and his phone conversations with a petty thief who had stolen his cellphone (Ajay leaves his mark) provide some fun moments. In fact, the mobile phone is like another crucial character in the film. The first half moves at a faster pace. Suspense and humour keeps it going, the lines sparkling. But in the second half, the narration tends to slacken a tad.
The weak link is the terrorist angle, which unravels rather slowly, the character seeming not in any great urgency to carry out his nefarious plan.
The expediency of the situation and the edge-of-the-seat feel could have been worked out better. Simi’s backstory, though briefly played out, seems like an unwanted distraction. One can find shades of Saravanan’s Engeyum Eppodhum (Rayappa has apprenticed with Saravanan), particularly in the way he moves his narration and in some character etching. Like that of Mukil which reminds one of the simpleton that Jai had played in the earlier film. Towards the end, suspense is built up spiralling to a fitting finale. One of the better scripts to appear in recent times, Thamizhuku Enn Ondrai Azhuthavum has a lot of positives going for it.