Thirunaal – Okayish or Mundane is the word!!! 

Bharath Vijayakumar

A gangster turning against his boss is the sort of one liner that could always work with the audience, provided it satisfies one of the two following conditions. The protagonist is played by a star whose fans have enough reasons to turn the auditorium into a scream fest (not the horror kind) or we invest ourselves enough in the protagonist that we root for him. Thirunaal tries to meet the second criteria or that is what we assume as the exclusion of the first option is a no brainer.

The characters in Thirunaal are quite interesting and there a number of them too. Thought seems to have gone in creating these characters. But what the film needed was to develop or show the traits of these characters. Jiiva plays an orphan and this is the reason for his steadfast devotion to his master. The problem here is that this reason does not resonate with you through the happenings on screen or even with the way the characters behave (or rather emote) but through random conversations. What was interesting upto a point was that Jiiva was shown as a ruthless criminal with no excuses whatsoever. Then came this scene where he kidnaps a female police officer and sends her uniform to her father. When her father agrees to his demands he hands over a dress to her. All good until now when the director seems to have realized that a “hero” cannot afford to see her in the nude and he makes sure he shows Jiiva taking extreme care to avoid even a glimpse of her. Not that someone should not or cannot be like this. But inadvertently (or even purposefully) what this tells us is that violence and murder is morally a lesser evil than what the “hero” might have committed by that glimpse which he refrains from. The biggest doubt at this point for me was whether our “hero” had blindfolded himself before stripping her.

The film on the whole does keep you atleast mildly interested for the most part. It keeps throwing some elements of surprise and few scenes that work in bits and pieces. But there is absolutely no flow to the proceedings. Characters come and go as and when they please. Gopinath (from Neeya Naana) makes an entry with a lot of sound and then we see him only for a couple more scenes. Ramadoss does make an effective comic portrayal but it is a little surprising to see a separate comedy track in these times. The film is not lazily made. Even an item song has some sort of a lead to it. But this lead and the song has no relevance to the film as such. The songs and the BGM are too loud. The climax is another dampener and it fizzles out.

Jiiva:

Jiiva is quite good as the somber looking gangster. He hardly smiles. Even in the romantic portions he holds back a little and these small things do help us in understanding that he does not really do the awful things that he does with all his heart. But it is also a fact that this somberness at times gives an impression of disinterest.

Bottomline:

A little urgency and excitement is what this film needed. As such it occupies the huge space between a tiring watch and a watchable fare. The proximity to either of these two boundaries would depend on what you look for in a film.

Rating: 2.25/5