Thillalangadi
Cast Jayam Ravi, Tamannaah, Shaam, Vadivelu, Prabhu, Suhasini
Director M Raja
Rating G
Thillalangadi is a Tamil remake of a Telugu film Kick. It got the cash-box merrily jingling with its hero Ravi Teja walking away with honours. It's about Peter robbing the rich to pay poor Paul. In Thillalangadi, the rich happen to be politicians, whose money, hoarded through highly questionable means is stolen by Peter in ways that are bizarre. The Tamil movie is yet another instance of a story that's scripted with little sense or logic.
How can you, for example, ever explain a thief at the wheel of a huge vehicle with a determined cop (Shaam) sitting next to him, driving through a thick wall into a chamber protected by hundreds of policemen, and taking away bags containing currency notes? To top it all, many politicians stand around as mute witnesses.
The sequences leading up to it are equally stupid. Krishna (Ravi) wants his life to be kicked into one long, never-ending road of shocks. He woos Nisha (Tamannaah), but doesn't want to commit.
The stories of love and thievery run parallel to each other, and do not converge, and it's only in the last 20 minutes that we understand the real motive behind the robberies. Do we sympathise with the heist-puller? Director Raja gives us no such choice; he makes it for us, adding in the bargain, yet another dim-witted angle.
The movie's saving grace is Radha Ravi, who plays a minister. Suhasini and Prabhu as Krishna's parents are shades better than the main cast. Tamannaah's voice, obviously dubbed, is uncomfortably high pitched and a terrible damper.