Pathu Thala Tamil Movie
"Pathu Thala" is the Tamil remake of the 2017 Kannada hit movie, "Mufti". Starring Simbhu and Gautham Karthik in the lead, the movie is directed by Obeli Krishna whose most famous outing to date is the 2006 hit, "Sillunu Oru Kadhal". As always, a gangster flick is known to be loaded with ammo and action, vengeance and emotions, and of course, a ton of violence to make it a 'bloody show'. "Pathu Thala" is one such show, with some twists underpinned.
The story surrounds AG Ravanan (Simbhu) alias AGR, a fearsome underworld gangster. He is known to call the shots in the political circle. He decides the chief minister and other such critical political moves. He is the typical gangster who is unforgiving when dealing with dishonest people.
Parallelly, a political rivalry exists between the current CM, Arunmozhi (Santhosh Prathap), and the deputy CM, Nanjilar Gunasekaran (Gautham Menon). In a turn of events, the CM gets kidnapped, and the cops are clueless about his whereabouts. Also, the political pot becomes unimaginably hot as Nanjilar schemes his evil plans to take advantage of the prevailing political instability.
Meanwhile, CBI and the cops infiltrate a mole inside AGR's gang, Guna (Gautham Karthik as a trained cop). He acts as the spy who silently passes every move of AGR to his superiors and carefully plans to win AGR's heart, thereby finding out the fate of the kidnapped CM. Did Guna achieve what he set out to do? Or did he find out something beyond what he thought he would be unravelling?
At 152 minutes, the movie dragged a lot, especially in the second half. Also, the believability in the script is a sore factor. A CM getting kidnapped in the most outright fashion, a gangster walking with swag after mercilessly beheading a person, and so many other politically correct scenes were a setback for the movie.
On the contrary, Simbhu's screen presence and the sibling sentiment worked like a charm towards the climax. The song, "Namma Satham '' and Simbhu's dance moves brought in the much-needed josh among the crowd. That was also the only number that reminded me that the spirit of AR Rahman graced the movie. Even the background score and the other songs were strictly average.
The bond between Gautham Karthik and Simbhu was well established, and one can relate to their closeness throughout the second half. Though Gautham Karthik has done nothing special, he had a meaty role as a cop loaded with action and masala. The single factor that balanced the movie was Simbhu. He had a terrific presence.
Director Krishna's writing was another sore point that did not allow certain characters to flourish. The female characters of Priya Bhavani Shankar and Anu Sithara held a lot of potential, with so many different shades. Instead, the first half had some antics from Gautham Menon and an unwanted item number from Sayyeesha.
Overall, it is an average fare where Simbhu tries to lift a dragging mediocre gangster drama to something more worthwhile with his actions and emotions. Had the movie been trimmed by 20 minutes, it would have been a much more worthy watch. As of now, go without any expectations, and you might not be disappointed.
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