Thuppakki Munai - A surprisingly neat and low key cop film!

Bharath Vijayakumar

In mainstream cinema you anticipate cop films to work a certain way. On the one hand you have films where the hero would take law into his hands to ensure instant 'justice' (justice is a debatable term here). For instance, in Kaakha Kaakha Anbuselvan (Surya) says that he saves a lot of government money by eliminating criminals with a single bullet. On the other hand you would have films (relatively less mainstream most of the times) where the hero plays a commoner and would be on the run from the system for no mistake of his - Visaranai and Mouna Guru come to mind. But the common point in both these types of films is that the hero plays someone who is on the right side of things. Thuppakki Munai starts very much like the first type but debutant Dinesh Selvaraj springs a pleasant surprise as the film progresses. The hero starts to wonder if he has been on the right side all this while.

For a film produced by Thanu, Thuppakki Munai has not made much of a noise before release and from a personal point of view this helped in a way as I did not have much idea as to what the film was about. This is such a rarity these days where you almost know everything about a film even before the first show. While there certainly are aspects where the film could have done better there is also a lot to like about this film. For starters, there is no romantic diversion nor songs and comedy thrust in. The absense of a relationship for the hero also adds believability to the film as there is no one close to the hero whose life is in danger because of the things that he does in the second half.

The film talks about a lot of important things. When you expect revenge to be served, it talks about treating the cause rather than punishing the products this society keeps delivering. It is definiety refreshing to see a film talk about the legalisation of prostitution and not keeping sex in the closet as possible solutions to reduce rapes. I wish Dinesh concentrated more in establishing a correlation with the things he wanted to convey with the characters of his film. The bad men in this film are not sex starved individuals looking for a let out but spoilt rich kids who could have anything they wish for. So while the message makes sense it does not really fit in seamlessly with the way the characters are portrayed.

Like Visaranai, this is a film that shows how the establishment can make a prey out of helpless individuals. Dinesh has followed a pattern in sketching his characters. The innocent who is made a scapegoat is shown as someone from the minority. (In one scene he acts like someone from the majority to escape being killed).His friend who tries to help him belongs to another minority. The villain is shown as extremely religious. There definitely is a lot of undercurrent in Thuppakki Munai.

Technically the movie is adequate. Music by L.V. Muthu Ganesh at the beginning sounds too commercial but gels better in the second half. Dinesh has a lot of things to say about extremely important topics. He also fits them well in an adequately engaging screenplay. More thrill or rush is what the film probably needed. Things seem to happen a tad too conveniently for the hero and the characters in trouble do not exactly pass on all the tension to us. Hence while we can feel the graveness of the situation, the treatment (or the acting) sort of makes us believe that all will be well. This robs the film off the heightened tension it ought to have had.

Bottomline

Thuppakki Munai is a surprisingly neat and low key cop film that leaves us introspecting. It makes us see the moral problem with the vigilante hero glorifying cop movies that we are accustomed to.

Verdict:2.75/5