After a string of duds, Mohanlal is back in shape in a role that requires him to assume many shapes. And boy, is he up to the task!
To begin with, he is a cabbie unhealthily attached to his vintage Ambassador car. He is also a bullish husband, a doting father and a Drishyam avatar. Beyond all these roles, Shamugham, a.k.a Benz (as he thinks his rickety car is posh, hah!) is a man pushed beyond endurance by a satanic cop named George (he likes to refer to himself as ‘George Sir’ and that’s just the tip of his sneering satanism) played with alarming odiousness by Prakash Varma.
I haven’t seen a more lucid portrayal of cinematic evil in quite a while. Admirably, Mohanlal allows Varma’s psycho-cop and the Ambassador car to dominate the show. Here, for a change, he is not interested in being in every frame. And even if he is ubiquitous, he isn’t messianic in his zeal to score heroic points.
I only wish director Tharun Moorthy and his team of writers had avoided the excessive violence towards the end, which includes two female characters being brutally and repeatedly thrashed by the villain-cop. Let’s just say the police torture here is Drishyam on speed.
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We do get the point of George’s evil designs, why stomp it in?
Also, the cardinal point of honour killing seems more an add-on, an afterthought rather than an integral part of the theme.
That said, the prudently structured narrative with nary a slack moment to digress keeps the audience invested right to the bloodied, brutal finale. Though it is not difficult to pre-empt some of the plot’s clever moves, I stopped second-guessing after a while. Thudarum sweeps you into its frenetic world of rapid ire.
Some of the writing here is so devious, you suspect the writers are trying to be over-clever. But then the thoughtful celerity plus the modalities of the crime beat woven into the narration hit you hard: this is no ordinary crime saga. The happenings flow out in a karmic cascade, sweeping the audience into a nightmare they would rather not be in.
Mohanlal ensures we remain invested in the agonising world of crime and scarce redemption. It has been a while since he played an underdog, a stuntman from the movies coerced into taking on family responsibilities that weigh heavily on his conscience till the very end. Mohanlal’s desperation to get even with the villains will get to you in ways that most Hindi cinema has long forgotten.
Thudarum would probably put you off the khaki uniform for a while. But there is an uncorrupted spirit at the core of this cleverly constructed crime drama which carries you across the boundaries of conventional entertainment.
