Thimiru: Shreya sparkles amidst mindless action
Rating: Average
Cast Vishal, Reema Sen, Shreya Reddy, Vadivelu, Manoj K. Jayan, I.M. Vijayan
Director – Tarun Gopi
Thimiru, much like Vishal’s last movie Sandakozhi, is an action flick, only more mindless. Thimiru means arrogant, a quality that according to the movie is essential in men and evil in women.
The film is a throwback to the early 90s when Telugu movies began losing touch with reality. Much like characters in those films, Vishal here plays Ganesh, a one-man army, who leaves a trail of maimed henchmen behind him.
Though the story is razor thin, the images change at a hectic pace on screen, creating more than one pseudo thrilling moment every minute. Ganesh arrives in Chennai to study medicine with a whole lot of gangsters hot on his heels. In the first half hour, Vadivelu, as the college warden, takes center stage reducing the brooding Vishal to the role of a bit player. Meanwhile, Srimathi (Reema Sen), a psychology student who “specializes” on the male id falls in love with Ganesh because he is, well, different.
After the narrative moves in all directions except forward, Ganesh’s story is finally revealed in flashback. Enter the family of Karuppus, a wild set of two brothers and a sister, Easwari Karuppu, played by Shreya Reddy of SS Music. All three are arrogant, violent and crazy, and the girl is crazily in love with Ganesh as well. After a couple of carefully crafted wire stunts by Kanal Kannan and twist and a turn, Easwari is electrocuted when she tries to kill Ganesh.
Shreya Reddy’s acting cannot be faulted. In fact, she almost pulls it off. But she is, perhaps, a little too good looking to be a convincing villain. She is also in many ways the lynchpin of the ambling narrative. It’s in her that debutant director Tarun Gopi invests the most and it’s her arrogance that has devastating consequences for almost all characters. Apart from stunts, she is the only one you are likely to remember as you walk out of the theatre.
Footballer I.M. Vijayan and Manoj K. Jayan play Easwari’s brothers. Vijayan stands out but Jayan is disappointingly trite.
Those parts of the state south of Madurai are shown in the movie as a hotbed of violent activity. This is a wild exaggeration of reality. In truth, southern parts of the state are, much like the rest of it, largely peaceful. Why rowdies must always hail from the south is a mystery that only the screenplay writers can crack.
Will the gangster genre that is trivialising creative Tamil cinema choke it to death? I look forward to the day when not all characters on screen are armed with a gun, a knife, a stick or an aruval?
(First published in Deccan Chronicle)em>
I would definitely not like to see movie reviews (even tamil movies) on my favourite Madras related blog. Sort of dilutes the focus a bit.. you really don’t need this.
Is there any reader who’d like to see movie reviews on Chennai Metroblogging?
(btw, your “em” tag is unclosed in the html)
Movie reviews are welcome and useful; If the name of the theatresa are given with review, would be more helpful and useful.
There are lot lot of websites available to read movie reviews. I dont want to read the reviews here. Dont make Chennai metblogs just another blog.
No to movie reviews
No movie reviews please.
hi guys,
the idea behind posting movie reviews here is that cinema is an integral part of the Chennai experience and we don’t want to miss out on that.
we promise to try and keep these reviews to movies running currently and post our personal experiences of watching them as well.
but we at metblogs don’t think we need to scrap them. we hope you will come of think of it like that too.
“the idea behind posting movie reviews here is that cinema is an integral part of the Chennai experience and we don’t want to miss out on that.”
Hardly. I can see tamil cinema sitting on another part of the continent and write the reviews myself without having any relevance to Madras at all. :)
This blog is a community blog, as opposed to a personal blog. Like I wrote in an email to one of your team members some time back, keep your standards high – you’re responsible for it. :)
@thelearner: please use ur mouse if u cant bear it. i love the movies and for me living in chennai means watching the movies here as well. and i am going to blog about it. feel free to skip the reviews.
Nandhu: Thanks, but I was always aware of the option.
You haven’t answered my question objectively; instead you got defensive. This is not a personal attack on Nandhu the person, and his likes and dislikes.
Since you write a blog for people like us to read,
1. it is illogical (IMHO) that you choose to ignore criticism
2. having been criticized you should be able to justify your stand.
I wrote what I thought was a valid point; I hope you can defend your stand without resorting to personal attacks.
Cheers!
i wasnt attacking you personally. i just suggested that you can skip the review if cant bear to read it. i still stand by that.
u said that u could watch tamil movies sitting outside india. sure u can. but for me who watched it in chennai, it is an important experience of the city that I share with metblog readers and a lot of others who watched the movie. for the reader, this experience might be worth reading about.
while this is not really a personal blog, it is not about city news. it is our ideas and thoughts about the city and its people, which are indeed quite personal.
i would like to assure you within chennai metblogging, we have set ourselves certain parameters that over the months we have redrawn, again and again. you as the reader are invited to criticise, of course.
not reviewing movies in here leaves the reader without a choice of reading about it. you on the other hand can skip the blog itself. i was merely pointing that out. we look forward to your continuing criticism on this and other issues. Do keep visiting chennai metblogs.
Alright.. since you’re dead set on reviewing movies, I’ll just pass critiques and leave it at that. :)
Must say that your metroblogging team does a great job – I enjoy reading your first person posts!