Movie Review: Thimmarusu

The second wave’s lockdown forced many movies to change their release dates in Telugu and many other movies to opt for the OTT release. Satyadev’s Thimmarusu is one of the very first movies to have the privilege of theatrical release. The movie is a remake of the Kannada crime thriller Birbal Trilogy Case 1: Finding Vajramuni and is titled in Telugu as Thimmarusu: Assignment Vali. The trailer of the movie is intriguing. Sharan Koppisetty who earlier made Kirrak Party is the director of this movie. The movie was released today and here is the review.

What Is It About?

A cab driver Aravind gets brutally murdered on a rainy night. A bartender Vasu (Ankith Koyya) who was passing by bumps into another biker and that is when he observes a man dead in the cab. He informs the same to the police but gets arrested as the accused in the crime. Police also gather evidence against him in the case to prove him as the murderer. The court announces life imprisonment to him.

Eight years later, an intelligent lawyer Ramachandra (Satya Dev) finds the need to re-open the case to prove that Vasu is not the actual murderer. Ramachandra convinces the law firm he works for, to do so. The hurdles he overcomes and the pressures he bears to prove his point and finding the actual monster is all about Thimmarusu.

Performances

Satyadev is a very talented actor who does a lot of homework for each role he plays. He fits the bill as a sharp yet struggling lawyer. He does complete justice to the role of defense lawyer Ramachandra. Priyanka Jawalkar looks beautiful. Though she is all through the film, her role is limited to more of a sidekick. So is Brahmaji, who plays the assistant of Satyadev. Brahmaji tries to bring up some laughs now and then, but none of his trials worked.

Ajay appears as a corrupt police officer Bhupathi Raju and it is not new for him. Praveen, Jhansi, Harsha Chemudu, and others are fine in their roles. Ravi Babu appears as a crooked lawyer Varaha Murthy and he is alright in it.

Technicalities

Thimmarusu is the official remake of the Kannada movie Birbal. The plot is not changed from the original, neither the screenplay. Almost all the scenes were exactly remade from Birbal, except that some scenes appear hurried here. Editing could have been better.

Background music is good. There were no songs or the speed-breaking romance in the movie, that kept the pace of the story. The cinematography is good. Visuals are engaging. The director decided to go ahead with the same original scenes for the narration all along. The vantage point of each crucial person in the case is shown as a different ‘dimension’, which is interesting.

Satyadev on his old bike and with the briefcase is his signature look and he carries that throughout, even in the fights.

Highlights

Satyadev
Plot
Background Music
Run time

Drawbacks

Routine Scenes
Too Many Twists

Analysis

Thimmarusu starts off with a point to prove that the convicted person is not the actual killer and it ends with bringing the real baddie out. While the plot looks interesting, the sub-plots and misleading stories in-between are to keep the story unraveled till the end.

A cab driver who is also a police informer gets killed by the stab wounds in his cab. We can clearly understand from the first few scenes that a much bigger conspiracy is behind framing a bartender in the murder mystery. Though there are some intriguing scenes, they are sandwiched between some very ordinary and routine scenes.

Many of the ideas are beaten to death and many others are completely predictable. For say, the accident scene where Ramachandra gets hit by a truck, the attack on the bartender, someone very close to Ramachandra leaking details, burkha escape, the protagonist saving his client from the goons in an intense yet stylish fight, all these scenes get us lost with monotony.

The lead character gets ideas just from the air in many scenes, just from someone else’s phone call, conversation, and just like that. Though it is shown as his genius, they appear more like arranged and overly smart.

In many scenes, a very rare coincidence is shown as an obvious possibility. One of them is Satyadev finding a van accident news from old newspapers and a van driver who picks up Harsha on a rainy night. Apart from some deja-vu, the recreation of scenes from the view of different people as their ‘dimension’ is made well, but that lacks importance at a later point.

There are different vantage points to the story like Harsha’s, petty thief Suri, Royal Enfield Venkata Ramana, the van driver’s story, and so on, but they appear so hurried that before we feel the twist something else happens to push it down.

Most of the investigation and the story happens outside the court and therefore there is nothing much interesting to expect in court scenes or the arguments. Though we are seeing the chase misleading with burkha from ages, the climax twist where the antagonist gets what he wanted in a smart way and also Satyadev’s idea of seeing his face, is something new and clever. And then again, the secret Satyadev keeps from all till the end is something we don’t really expect but that is where ‘Thimmarusu’ comes keeping this particular case close to him personally and professionally.

Thimmarusu may not be the best film to have the theater experience after the lockdown gap. With many biggies going for OTT releases, Thimmarusu also can be watched on OTT at a later point.

Bottom line: Guilty Of Overly Smart

Rating: 2.75/5

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