Just saw the movie called Thupparivaalan thru Amazon Prime today… The film, directed by Mysskin, was produced by the actor Vishal who also played the lead role along with a cast involving but not limited to Andrea Jeremiah, Prasanna, Vinay and Anu Emmanuel… The film is said to have been inspired by the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes… The film was released in Sep 2017 and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has been given credit for the inspiration…
The film takes us along the journey of Kaniyan Poongundran, a private detective, played by Vishal along with his trusted assistant Manohar, played by Prasanna as they investigate the murder of a kid’s dog to uncover a series of murders by a notorious crime ring… The film then proceeds to have Kaniyan proceed with his investigation to the members of the gang one by one who end up either killing themselves or killed by the boss to prevent them from getting caught, with a scene in which one of the henchmen after getting stabbed by the boss, crawls on the floor and goes to kill his bedridden mother before he dies, I guess to effectively drive home the point of notoriety… The film ends with the ever so usual end of the hero finally defeating the villain after much sacrifice from his end…
Regarding how the movie felt for me, first of all, I know that they have taken inspiration from the character Sherlock Holmes, but they also seems to have taken inspiration from the Robert Downey Jr starrer Sherlock Holmes movies as well… Why I say this is because the entry scene of Kaniyan Poongundran is very similar to the opening scene of the 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie, where we see the detective go absolutely bananas craving for an “interesting”/”Challenging” case while being in a dark room going thru all kinds of books, etc… The part where Sherlock Holmes meets a woman in a restaurant and figuring out her background is again replicated here but with a twist where instead of it being a meeting at a restaurant, this is a woman coming to Kaniyan for a case, which he then solves in seconds 🙂 Vishal’s portrayal of the highly eccentric detective along with Prasanna doing the sane component of their partnership i.e. the Watson to Sherlock Holmes, seemed to be quite convincing…
It was indeed a surprise to see Andrea Jeremiah play a negative character i.e. being part of the notorious gang who is shown doing multiple murders and even attempting to murder Kaniyan as well… 🙂 However, I felt that Vinay Rai ‘s portrayal of the boss with alias “Devil” could’ve been a lot better… The gang itself, based on the way they work, reminded me of the famous “8” in the old Mandrake comics 🙂 Then ofcourse, you can’t have an Indian movie without some form of romantic component and hence enters Mallika, played by Anu Emmanuel, a pick pocket whom Kaniyan ends up in love with but in his own highly eccentric way 🙂
Anyways, altogether a good attempt at a crime thriller film thats worth watching once 🙂