Thani Oruvan – The Indian Dark Knight

by Raven

*** Spoilers Ahead *** : Please read this article only after you watch Thani Oruvan!

There have been plenty of rave reviews for Jayam Raja’s Thani Oruvan, but this one is not a review. While watching the film, I was so reminded of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, the second film in The Dark Knight trilogy. Thani Oruvan is not even remotely inspired from The Dark Knight, but I felt that the central characters were so painstakingly written, and they left me on a high. Although the films are about ‘Good Vs Evil’, both of them are brutally brilliant, thanks to their unpredictable and highly engaging screenplays. Here’s an attempt to compare the central characters of Thani Oruvan, with that of The Dark Knight.

(Let me get this straight! The article is not trying to convey that Thani Oruvan is inspired from The Dark Knight, but just putting both of them in the same league.)

Siddharth Abhimanyu (Arvind Swamy) as Batman/Bruce Wayne

• For a change, I would compare Arvind Swamy with Bruce Wayne, the Batman. Similar to Bruce Wayne, Siddharth Abhimanyu has two sides. To the outside world, Siddharth Abhimanyu is a science genius and an industrialist, just like how Bruce Wayne was one. However, Siddharth is majorly a mighty brilliant badass, who can do anything for money; similar to Batman, who did everything to safeguard the Gotham city.
• Siddharth Abhimanyu implants a bug into Mithran’s (Jayam Ravi) body to monitor him, while Batman converted every mobile phone in the Gotham city into a microphone to track Joker.
• Towards the end of the film, Siddharth Abhimanyu turns a dark knight and lets Mithran hog the limelight, while he could have walked away unscathed if he had gone by Mithran’s deal. Similarly, Batman had put the blame on himself and glorified Harvey Dent, to uphold the faith of the people.

Mithran (Jayam Ravi) as the Joker

• While Joker’s only aim was to introduce chaos into the planned schemes and create panic, Mithran’s singular focus is to stop the organized crimes by destroying the most influential criminal.
• Both Joker and Mithran have their own gang of men, but their actions are the results of their individual ideas and plans. Similar to Joker, Mithran is a strikingly different character who has his own world, which cannot be easily understood by others.
• Joker did not want to kill Batman as he felt Batman completed him. Similarly, Mithran wants Siddharth to live, for a bigger and more meaningful reason though.

Mahima (Nayanthara) as Rachel Dawes

Although Rachel Dawes loved Bruce Wayne, she was always in a confused state due to Bruce Wayne’s Batman avatar. In Thani Oruvan’s case, Mahima unconditionally loves Mithran, but Mithran keeps avoiding her, due to his daring vision.

Sengalvarayan (Thambi Ramaiah) as James Gordon

Similar to James Gordon, Sengalvarayan comes back alive after the world mourns his death.

Final Words

Thani Oruvan is easily one of the best high-octane and smartly written Tamil cop films in a long, long time. If Jayam Raja could come up with such a brilliant script, he should ban himself from doing remakes and write more original scripts. Arvind Swamy should just act more; he is such a darling on screen and he can outshine anyone in well-written roles. Jayam Ravi should play to his strengths and do more amazing roles like this one. In short, Thani Oruvan is as good as The Dark Knight, if not better. Hats off to the team!

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