Pathu Thala review

Pathu Thala movie review: Silambarasan TR, popularly known as Simbu, entertains his audiences with a power-packed performance in the Tamil film.

The finale action sequence is one of the major highlights of the film and thanks to the way it’s shot and presented, it leaves the viewer exiting the cinema hall on a high. The crime angle of the film largely unfolds in the second half after Gautham Karthik’s character infiltrates AGR’s gang and it’s this half of the movie that really keeps one engrossed in the story. Nevertheless, Pathu Thala still works to a large extent because of Silambarasan, who leaves maximum impact in the limited screen time he gets.

Apart from how perfectly this suits the real-life image of its equally misunderstood star Silambarasan, this villain-to-hero arc is just as ideal for the ...

The imagery, even during a highly amped interval introduction scene should have ideally been a lot more explosive given the hours of hyping the film has been doing for its hero. This of course is the troubled relationship between Ravana and Shurpanaka and it does a great job by also including Ravana’s murder of her husband as the most important conflict driving Pathu Thala. The philosophy of its protagonist AGR also seems to be the philosophy that drives the screenplay. Apart from how perfectly this suits the real-life image of its equally misunderstood star Silambarasan, this bad-to-good flow is just as ideal for the way the film plays with the Ramayana myth. It also helps that the film is narrated from the point of view of an undercover police officer named Guna (Gautham Karthik), who has to infiltrate AGR’s circle of trusted lieutenants to gather enough evidence to convict him. Said to have been inspired by the Kannada film Mufti (2017), the writing is clever in the way it convinces the audience to dislike its protagonist AGR (STR) for much of its runtime until it becomes impossible to not love him.

'Pathu Thala,' even when it tries a lot to add novelty to its Kannada original 'Mufti,' has too many issues that do no justice to Silambarasan TR and ...

It’s only a spectacularly-shot action sequence in the second half that gives any energy to this film which has an atrocious reveal that can put any technological advancement of the 21st century to shame. Leela is at loggerheads with AGR’s men, and both the crime lord and Sakthivel are aware of it. The screenplay of Pathu Thala is woven tight — more than the source material — but there are too many issues in how this film is paced. Most within the party suspect Naanjilaar’s hand in the disappearance of the CM, and this only adds to his anger at AGR. And though the story still follows the undercover cop Sakthivel (Gautham Karthik), who infiltrates AGR’s gang, much of how he goes about it and the role he plays in the film, gets diluted. In a surprising turn of events, the Chief Minister gets kidnapped, and all eyes turn towards AGR, an infamous mining mafia head in Kanyakumari.