Thalappavu

Actor Madhupal’s first directorial venture, ‘Thlappavu’ featuring Prithviraj & Lal deals with a political murder which happened in the Emergency period of later 70’s.Though Madhupal is known as an actor, he came to the cine field as an assistant director to Rajiv Anchal in ‘Kashmeeram’, In the absence of an artist he was placed as a substitute and thus began his career. In the middle, it was heard that he has also completed some literary works.

Babu Janardhanan is the script writer of ‘Thalappavu’. You should remember that he wrote political subject ‘Vasthavam’, controversial issue related film ‘Achanurangatha Veedu’, family and romantic hits like ‘Thachiledathu Chundan’ and ‘Chandranudikkunna Dikkil’, action films like ‘Dreams’, ‘Varnapakittu’ etc.

The film goes through the views of a retired police constable who was assigned the task to kill a person who was involved in naxal activities in the 70’s. The story is not new, moreover it is straight, we are aware of such an issue through the newspapers. Few years before the police constable himself has told the media about the memorable thing happened in his life more than 25 years ago.

Her Lal comes in the role of a simple policeman, whose life is going through tensions and abnormalities after particular incident. Thus he is the central character here. Prithviraj is the activist who is working for the noble cause of farmers against the rich men and Jamindars. In the end, as a part of destroying such movements, he is being arrested, brutally tortured and later killed in the custody.

This is a slow movie paced which can’t be categorized in a main stream or parallel type. The fate happened to some of the movies discussing a true life story has happened here also. Since we all know the A to Z things in the story line there is no scope for big expectations.

But the main thing to be noted here is the treatment of such a subject. The new director and the experienced script writer should be appreciated for this. In the first scene itself climax is revealed followed by a flashback of the flashback portion, next scene goes to the current period. The non uniformity in the scene arrangements is good and different.

Prithviraj doesn’t have anything big to do. Lal as a policeman has delivered his best, but such a big thing from him won’t be easily acceptable to an average malayalee viewer. It is not good to waste the time of a serious actor like Atul Kulkarni by casting him in such a small and weaker role. The family issues of the hero sometimes feel too dramatic and boring.

Tamil actor Mohan (‘Mounaragam’, Udayageetham’ fame) who was busy in the 80’s is the producer of ‘Thalappavu’. Azhagappan is the cameraman; Shyam Dharman has given the back ground score. Madhupal as a director will be in the news for taking such a serious subject for his debut film.

This ‘Thalappavu’ doesn’t suit well for all heads. So please wait till you get a good one to wear.

Rating : 2.5 / 5