Thuppaki: A Farewell To arms, but is it a welcome to brains?

THUPAKKI(2012)

If this genre was a temple, director Shankar built the Gopuram around which numerous multi colored flats began to appear, obstructing the view and highlighting things that should have never been highlighted. So much so that people were forced to like these high rises and forget the temple.

If you might feel that this masala thriller is a structure made of paper-mache and do not care for it much, then you might not have to bother about how it needs strengthening or how it has dampened over the years. Then like any masala film, Thupakki is not for you.

While wondering whether to strike out irritating architectural metaphors from the previous paragraphs, I realize that I am at an odd position whether it is right to expect serious storylines in a casual film an even an attempt to bring about some story should be applauded. But then a film is a film.

Thupakki succeeds in suspending thought for almost the length of serious bits (the movie can be divided into two films one which has a crazy unrelated love track with Kajal Agarwal and the action film about a military officer saving a city, not once but many times on his own)

The supposed comedic-romantic interludes made me lose interest in the film and thought heavy adrenalin needed to be pumped into me to come back into the man saving the city mode; which also made me think that latter could have been a taut film by itself; while those things had to be stripped out for commercial interests.

Hours after watching the film, the thought that people will always make films thinking that I will like something and compromise on the work, only depressed me more.

I do not belong to any of the fan boy camps and I am not exactly anxious for Vijay/Ajith’s next film; but the time spent in the theatre was good. There was action where it was needed and a lace of intelligence for the action to happen. That’s about it, I wouldn’t subscribe to the ‘greatness’ phrases tossed about in relation to this film.

I doubt if it will accumulate magic over the years and become a staple diet of a movie fan, but one can never rule out anything because entertainment has different meanings even within the same households.