Thoongavanam - Movie Review

From one movie a year to three in a row in 2015. Kamalhassan is increasing his pace not only in his movies but also in his schedule. Thoongavanam is his third outing this year after a classic Uttama Villain and a suspense-thriller Papanasam, which was a remake of malayalam blockcuster Dhrishyam.

Thoongavanam Movie Review

Thoongavanam is an official remake of Nuit Blanche (Sleepless Night), a French movie released way back on 2011. It really is a gutsy attempt in remaking a fast-paced Hollywood movie for the audience, who is fond of commercial entertainers. Kudos to Kamalhassan for tweaking the screenplay a bit, bringing in regional flavours for viewers.

Alright, let's get started. This review is all about music and performances. Story and screenplay is an adapted version, hence an exception.

What makes you stay seated?

With an exceptional casting crew, performances is the one that makes you seated throughout the movie. Kamalhassan steals the show with his remarkable performance. He reprised the role of a veteran police officer of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). He pulls it off with his trademark expressions and one-liners. Prakash Raj came back to where he started initially, a suave villain. He scores with his witty dialogues deliveries and menacing performance, especially in an emotional phone call with his son. Nobody can do it better than Mr. Ulaganayagan.

Trisha, a cute and chubby actor, was absolutely fantastic with her looks and performance as she reprised herself as grin police officer. Her daring stunt with Kamal is noteworthy and will surely be remembered for a while. Kishore as a cunning police officer, Sampath as drug mafia, Yugi Sethu as a naive officer has done a fabulous role. One can see just the character of their role instead of seeing the actors by themselves, such is the level of characterization in this movie.

Music is the real hero of this movie, since the story and screenplay has been an adapted version. Gibran rocks yet again with Kamal, following Uttama Villain and Papanasam. He tried different genre of music in this movie; Glitch Music. Pulsating BGM adds adrenaline rush to the screenplay and the song is very inventive one.

What would have been better?

Dialogues would have been even more crisp and powerful. The punch is missing towards the end, which is primarily due to the feeble dialogues. The original version was just an hour and half, but here it was dragged a little in the name of viewers taste. Actually that is a big let down from the makers.

Set aside the negatives, Thoongavanam is a fitting debut for Rajesh who previously worked with Kamalhassan as an assistant director. He surely has worked very well in designing this thriller to enthrall the audience. He has been very well assisted by the Cinematographer Sanu Varghese, who brought before us an exciting hard-rock party club, capturing it from various angles; and the editor Shan Mohammed for crisp and fast scenes.