2023, Tamil, IMDB 8.6/10, Directed by Vignesh Raja
A grippy investigative thriller, a potential franchise in itself, stays true to its genre, sans manipulative emotions and eeriness. The well-crafted serial killing premise, showcases technical prowess, exploring the scopes of its actors to the fullest. With no jarring suspenseful background score, the film lets you appreciate the ‘making’ as much as the content and its context.
The makers have a clear vision from writing the script to executing it. The narrative, focuses on visual perfections rather than trying to influence the viewer’s thought process. Director Vignesh Raja, takes his time to establish the traits of the investigating duo’s, played by Ashok Selvan and Sarath Kumar. As an add-on, the screenplay parallels on ‘parental responsibilities’ in bringing down the rates of such heinous crimes. The director strategizes his screenplay to voice out, that violence can’t be prompted to individuals by any medium, while on the other hand, it is the familial values, that might prevent such psychopaths on a killing spree.
Just when viewers are intrigued by Ashok Selvan’s versatile work pattern and character selection, one is equally left in awe of Sharath Kumar’s striking performance. In a grumpy body language, seemingly an extension of Periya Pazhuvettaiyar’s role from PS-2, the stern yet naive actor, refreshes our memories, of his, three decades old, ‘Nattamai’ days.
The duo along with Nikhila Vimal, the female lead, makes progress on solving the case as a team and trio’s personal bond blossoms organically. The brief soul-searching dialogues of Ashok with Nikhila and his ice breaking attempts with Sharath, not only helps in accelerating the screenplay but also reaches out to the audience, making them feel inclusive.
The twists and turns are carefully addressed by an organized screenplay, leaving the audience engrossed, when the plot disentangles itself. As the ‘suspect hat’, shifts from one suspect to another, the screenplay is comprehensive enough, not bothering the narrative’s pace much. At the same time, the final suspect doesn’t get adequate screen time to establish his motive, for the newer set of crimes, leaving us deeply hooked with the previous suspect. Also, the ‘locking horns’ sequences between the Police personnel and the Crime Branch duo, also seemed a little rushed in the latter part. But the director chooses to focus his lenses on the primal plot points and it does spans out beautifully in his favor.
Straight forward and simple dialogues, are yet another strength of the film, making the characters more human and familiar. One such was Ashok Selvan’s reply to Sarath Kumar’s argument. Sarath argues that children who have been abused, necessarily don’t grow up to becoming criminal offenders themselves. He says, they may sometimes become police officials, to punish the people who abuses children, hinting his own childhood trauma. Ashok Selvan fittingly and boldly counters, pointing out how Sarath’s childhood trauma result in his ‘unapproachable persona’.
The parting words, has got to be about Sarath Kumar. The actor’s controlled performance and his blank, stern and emotionless face, ironically tries to communicate with the audience all the time. His face does occasionally, give room for inevitable emotional expressions at times. And surprisingly he divulges those emotions, just to the audience. This makes us audience, long for those untold stories of his childhood. He almost mellows down, child-like, in the climax frame, which gives way for a role reversal to his counter-part Ashok Selvan. And Ashok pulls it off with ease as well. The success of the film is that, we end up wishing ‘Por thozhil’, be upgraded to a franchise format, that it might offer us uninterrupted crime solving and some beautiful personal story-telling.
One can’t ignore the similarity the film shares with the 2018 Tamil film ‘Ratsasan’, https://g.co/kgs/M1UrgH . But the sub plots amidst which ‘Por Thozhil’ had been spun, makes it a riveting watch on its own, fondly reminding the likes of P. Sujatha’s ‘Ganesh Vasanth’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesh%E2%80%93Vasanth which was originally inspired by Sherlock Holmes and Watson.