When Thattassery Koottam begins with visuals from Sabarimala, we get a feeling that an exciting backstory may well be there in this screenplay written by Santosh Echikanam. But as soon as the real story gets unveiled in front of us, it becomes that cliched revenge story with a series of predictable moments. What was weird about the story is that what they presented as the conflict in the story was never a factor for the movie’s final act.
Sanjay is a young man who belongs to a goldsmith family. Even though Sanjay was a talented artist who drew some lovely paintings, he wasn’t really into them. During his stint as an online taxi driver, he met Aswathy, and long story short, he promised to help her in winning a jewelry-oriented fashion show. But his uncle, a reputed goldsmith, had to pay a huge price for what Sanju did to impress Aswathy. What we see in the movie Thattassery Koottam is the aftermath of that.
There was a template that Udaykrishna and Sibi K Thomas followed when they shifted to action films with superstars. It was the humor and drama that made the viewers ignore the template nature of those films. The story and writing of Thattassery Koottam will remind you of that era and the filmmaking sensibilities of those days. In the movie, Sanjay’s uncle is under pressure as he is asked to make a piece of unique jewelry for a powerful businessman. And almost half an hour before the interval block, you will get an idea of how Sanjay will screw this up, as we are familiar with this formula.
When we enter the movie’s second half, we expect a conflict based on what has happened in the story so far. But the script takes a different turn and gives a romantic angle to the story, and decides to introduce a new set of bad guys. The way the story shifts in the second half made me wonder whether they rewrote the movie mid-way. The theft that happens in the second half takes the movie to a very predictable zone and what you get in this Anoop Padmanaban movie is a mixture of familiar tracks.
Arjun Ashokan, as Sanjay, gets a character that is very much in his comfort zone. But the efforts to make that character a bit goofy looked really odd. Vijayaraghavan, who plays, Sanju’s uncle, is another prominent character in the film and it was another typical character. Priyamvadha Krishnan is the female lead of the movie, and that character was also a non-challenging routine one. Ganapathi, Aneesh Gopal, Unni Rajan P Dev, Siddique, Sreelakshmi, Shiny Sarah, and many other names are there in the movie, along with an unsurprising cameo in this Graand Productions film.
If you are missing the movie-making sensibilities that existed almost ten or fifteen years ago, I would say Thattassery Koottam might work for you in parts. Thattassery Koottam is a movie that doesn’t even know what kind of central conflict it wants to have. The efforts to label Kerala Police as incapable might make you say, “why so desperate?” That sequence they had included to acknowledge transgenders as equals reminded me of Masterpiece’s “I respect women” dialogue.
Thattassery Koottam is a movie that doesn't even know what kind of central conflict it wants to have.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
