Thank You

Thank You from V K Prakash isn’t a bad film when you just look at the purpose or message of the film. But having watched a scintillating thriller in the form of Neeraj Pandey’s “A Wednesday” (remade in tamil as “Unnai Pol Oruvan”) a few years back, the making of the film just didn’t inspire or impress me on the required degree. Writer Arunlal tries to throw light on the social issue of the security of women again with his writing. In comparison with his previous work “10:30 AM Local Call” there is definitely some improvement.

The plot here revolves around a man who came to Trivandrum city. He steels a police wireless set and makes a bomb threat through the wireless. His first threat being true, the police became quite vigilant and they are on a mission to sack him at the earliest. What is the man’s identity? What is his intention? Why is he doing this? Thank You from VKP is a thriller that seeks the answers to these questions.

The content is indeed relevant in the present social scenario and they haven’t tried to make the movie too much of a masala. But what’s disappointing is the script that depend a lot on A Wednesday and the improvisations made by the writer isn’t that natural or appealing. Throughout the movie I could feel a conflict between the direction and scripting. While VKP was trying to keep the film on a normal tone, script was somewhat exaggerating the deeds of the main protagonist. And the writing also fails to create an anxiety among the audience while the entire film’s backdrop was getting tensed. The first half is somewhat an indigestible exaggeration and the second half is a predictable social message that will make us think but won’t touch us deeply.

Direction is on the positive side from VKP. Those steady cam full length shots involving Sethu inside the commissioner office had that engaging factor. The weak point is the script as it took a lot of time to get into the subject. The beauty of A Wednesday was that the content was spot on and even with minute subplots they were trying to convey something that really existed in society. But Thank You’s research seems to be quiet peripheral. The dialogs aren’t that charming. Many of the dialogs given to the irrelevant characters kind of stands out. I liked the cinematography and the edits are Ok. Music is good, but the BGM couldn’t bring any great impact.

The character is never really a challenge for Jayasurya’s caliber. But he really fits into that mystery man’s role. I wasn’t that impressed by Sethu’s portrayal. Even the character structure was a bit unusual. Brief appearances by the rest of the cast including P Balachandran, Mridul Nair, Sudheer karamana, Tini Tom, Honey Rose, Aishwarya Devan, Kailash, Saiju Kurup and Mukundan.

Overall, Thank You disappoints as a cinematic experience. Acknowledging the social commitment of the content, I am giving it a 2.5/5. It fails to make us feel for the suffering.