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Monday, May 15, 2006

Thiruttu Payale (2006) - Tamil Movie Review

Ranking: 4/5

Cast: Jeevan, Malavika, Sonia Agarwal, Abbas, Manoj K. Jayan
Director: Susi Ganesan
Music: Baradwaj

Manickam's (Jeevan) parents are afraid of him because of his temper tantrums and unruly behavior. Afraid to handle him they send him from a small village in Madurai to his uncle's house in Chennai. Manickam's uncle, a police inspector dotes on him from his childhood and welcomes him with open arms.

Manickam, spends a lot of time on the terrace that overlooks a golf course and with the help of one of his neighbors gets hold of a pair of binoculars. He uses it to spy on people when his eye catches Roopini (Malavika) and Santosh (Abbas) having sex after dark. He observes them many times over few weeks and also learns that they are having an extra-marital affair. And with a little research learns that both Roopini and Santosh are rich. So he decides to video tape them having sex and bilk them to live rich the rest of his life.

Manickam invites his friends from the village over and they start partying and spending Roopini's money like water and also force her to send them on a vacation to Australia. Roopini at every stage of the bilking process tries to outsmart Manickam. The battle of wits is on...Until Manickam falls in love with Rosy (Sonia), a girl planted by Roopini to lure Manickam.

Manickam turns into a good leaf because of Rosy's intervention and everything between Roopini and Manickam are things of past. But Rosy's greedy mother poses a threat to their relationship and Manickam is forced to revert to his old habits once more.

In the meantime Roopini's husband Selvaraj (Manoj) hires a private detective to make sure that his wife is not in trouble...The detective's findings brings in an amazing ending to the movie. The way the director leaves many of the scenes without completion and goes back to complete them giving us a clearer picture is very interesting. Kudos to the director for maintaining the interest and pace of the movie from start to finish.

Jeevan is a good actor, he has done very few movies but a couple of memorable ones. He is very effective on communicating the negativeness in his role. Maybe he should only play negative roles...Sonia Agarwal should learn to emote. She has a deadpan face and she is not attractive either. Malavika is very good in her characterization of Roopini and Abbas still looks gay but was good for his role in the movie. Manoj K. Jayan as the husband of Malavika plays his role to perfection. In other words the casting of the movie (but for Sonia) and the direction is just splendid...

If you have time and are thinking about watching MI3 or Azhagai Irukirai...STOP...Go and see this entertaining thriller...It is GOOD...Worth the time and money.

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