The last outing, Puli, by actor Vijay was not only dull as a cinematic product, but also had the actor in him fade to some extent, and Theri comes as a relaxation for the fans to relish and the actor in him brighten, but not completely for, the movie is a celebration of clichés and predictabilities that tests the patience of viewer as it progresses.
When they make a movie with character makeover type stuff in the package, the makers should take care right from the marketing part and for the ones who watched the trailer of Theri could easily guess the upcoming built up surprises, five minutes into the film. So, boom, the mass transformation remains half-baked, thanks to the thundering BGM, it helped baking.
Like all so called mass movies, Theri too got this problem – travelling the clichéd paths of predictability. As per tradition, when the flashback starts, you gotta have the hero-introduction followed by a song. Okay, Atlee wants novelty, so he tries a rather comical yet massive introduction which falls flat for the over-acted hero; I never imagined an IPS officer singing kindergarten poem so ridiculously. Then we have a string of clichés from ladies calling the protagonist, cute and handsome; a heroine with Mother Theresa’s kindness and her love with our all-perfect-socially protective- handsome- and whatnot hero. Okay, let’s include some family sentiment, thinks Atlee, but he needs novelty right, so tries some mother- wife emotion, and ends up having a 15 minute serial drama. Then the usual duet with crap vfx, hell, the songs were unbearable except the first and last ones. Right at the interval block, the movie elevates to the best height - exhilarating mass effect. While I was expecting a power packed latter half, the movie experiences a constant fall that only rises in the post-climax scene. So boring and predictable was the second half, especially to the climax portions. I was unable to decipher why the craftsman in Atlee, who made a wonderful movie like Raja Rani from a wafer thin plot, was unable to create something fresh out of a potential plot like Theri’s.
While the writing part stayed lazy, the making was of superior quality, especially the frames. George C Williams’ cinematography is one factor that kept me hooked to screen, despite the whole crap going. Atlee has already proved that he is a good director with his debut movie and Theri doesn’t boost his directional abilities anywhere, well, his packing of stuff has gone chaos at parts. Even some usually written scenes were effective due to apt color grading, right cuts and cracking music. Yes, GV Prakash Kumar’s background score perfectly synchronized mass moments, but sadly, the songs were irritating, both in the placement and enjoyable sense.
Coming to the character building, I’m pretty sure that there was something novel on paper, but on execution, that effect wasn’t felt on the whole. The mystery thing didn’t work out that well due to the same reason, but Vijay delivered a surprisingly different performance that kept hook to the subject right from the opening scene. Yet, once the flashback portions start, he was back to his old-crap style, especially in the comedy scenes, where he or may be director wanted something new, which ended badly. Vijay’s ‘Otha Sollala’ dance imitating Dhanush’s steps was one of the most enjoyable things, so were the interval and post-climax scenes. Other notable performances were from T Rajender who rocked as usual and Baby Nainika who too was goo; remarkable is her climax conversation with villain. Oh yes, the villain reminded the old age Tamil stereotypes, his henchman and stuff are the ones seen since the inception of Tamil cinema. The character definition or whatever the honesty they had to maintain was absent throughout, usually movies should process as per the behavioral instinct of characters but here, characters behave so as to reach some point of script – forced and artificial; though such factors matter to minimal levels in a movie with mass label, the viewer has minimum of thinking capacity right?
There is a particular fight scene in the film where our protagonist tries to get his hands on child-beggar mafia and ends up creating a traffic mess, involving accidents. Still can’t understand the civilian sense- quotient adopted by the ‘efficient’ IPS officer, who doesn’t care public and concentrates on his one-dimensional duty. And surprisingly, he is celebrated by the public as a hero – no wonder why these mass movies end up as craps most time. Well, these kinds of questions are out of mass movie circumference right, I forgot that!
Overall, Theri, though has the label of mass entertainer, is a director’s failed attempt to bring everything into a complete package, eventually messing up. In one sentence, if Theri is a baby, then Basha and Yennai Arithaal can be called parents!
