My name is Devi Prasad and I am not a reviewer!
Thupparivaalan was a nice attempt in making a detective-movie; a "Sherlock" replica to be precise. While I have no complains with the fact that the movie was heavily inspired by the Sherlock series - the house with interiors resembling that of 221B, Kaniyan Poongundran being as uncommon a name as Sherlock Holmes, Mano being as common a name as James (Dr Watson), Asst. Commissioner hinting Inspector Lestrade's role and Devil shown as a parallel to Prof Moriarty - there was an Indian touch with a caretaker-turned pickpocket and Kani falling in love. Oh, wait! Was she supposed to be Irene Adler?!
There was a lot of attention paid to details, which is lacking in many movies of recent times. Being a detective story, Mysskin perhaps did not want minor glitches to make the audience believe they were intentional mistakes. However, the same ended up being slightly overdone and forced in some places. Before Dhivakar is struck by a lightning, it seems unnatural for him to hold the metal pole beside him. When the ACP is speaking at Kani's house, the audio dampens when he turns his face to the other direction; they have thought Physics, but in reality, there is not so much of a difference in the intensity when someone moves their head while talking. There were some repetitive wordings and editing defects like 'drishti bottu' (see below). Also, certain dialogues were rushed and improperly spaced, even when the characters' faces were turned away from the camera. Such mistakes are found at much higher frequencies in several movies these days, but I thought they deserve a mention. Apart from these, I felt the movie was well executed. I also liked Devil's "One coffee" cue.
I am glad they did not bring in a brother character "Mycrosoft" Kanini Poongundran (Mycroft Holmes), who is a secret agent at the Prime Minister's office and insists that all Kani's clients link their cases to their Aadhar cards (which has a mention in one scene), or an old house owner (Mrs Hudson) who would have asked Kani to help her carry drinking water cans, buy ration groceries or pay electricity bills every month. Overall, it was a good attempt, with only some instances making Kani appear as a weirdo, to non-Sherlock watchers.
Here are some examples of the "flaws" I mentioned earlier -
Repetitive dialogues:
-I'll call you back in a minute.
-Happy birthday, daddy!
-What's all this?
-Just a small surprise.
-Oh, that's so sweet.
...
-Happy birthday, daddy!
-I'll call back, Rajiv. Hey, what's all this man?
-Surprise, daddy.
-Surprise ah? That's very sweet.
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-Yaar pa adhu?
-Onnu ille ma, yaaro oru...
-Enna pa aachu?
-Onnu ille ma (same intonation), surukku nu...
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Editing/direction errors:
When a guy touches Pritha at the movie theatre, she throws the popcorn container right behind herself, in shock. The same scene watched later as a CCTV footage shows her flinging the popcorn tub far away behind her.
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The dad with a missing daughter, Madhavan, tears every cheque leaf after writing only the amount in figures. But when he hands a blank cheque, it is already torn and kept readily on the table.
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A doctor at the dental clinic and the ACP at Kani's house, both intentionally try to avoid hitting the camera while walking by.
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When one of Devil's guys pulls a corpse out of the fridge, he just teleports to an open fridge door. They probably forgot to shoot him walking to and opening the fridge.
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Kani talks so much about the deadly Ricin, but the word 'Nitrous' Oxide (laughing gas) is censored. Is it because N2O is more readily available to the general public than Ricin?
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During the interrogation of Inspector Madhivanan, he unnecessarily talks about a dog, just to give a clue in the movie. An actual criminal would not elaborate in such detail. Also, he does not explain other crimes in so much depth.
#ABCR #AnyBodyCanReview #CinemaPaithiyam
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