Director Perarasu known for his nomenclature of films based on places is ready with his next offering Thiruthani with his favorite hero Bharath once again after Pazhani. In Thiruthani, Perarasu, apart from being responsible for story, screen play, dialogues and direction has also donned the mantle of a lyricist and a music director.

Perarasu has a template of a story telling that involves an action sequence, romance and sentiment not necessarily in that order and he has religiously followed the same pattern here too. And there are lots of punch dialogues and sermons sprinkled all over Thiruthani.

The story is nothing new; a young man taking it out on all bad elements of the society and attempting to cleanse it with his antics with a military man in tow, a heroine to prance around and a family for sentiment quotient. The subject is not new but if it had been presented in a more interesting and engaging fashion may have rendered different results. 

The premise has been milked dry in cinema and the redundancy is irksome. The director appears to have been caught in some kind of time wrap and perhaps this theme would have worked wonders at turnstiles a couple of decades ago.

Bharath as the gym master is convincing and mouths his punch dialogues as vociferously as possible. There is also a monumental exercise in hero building, typical of a commercial potboiler. The character of gym master facilitates the demonstration of his chiseled and bronzed torso. Sunaina looks pleasant and is natural too. However her stylish clothes are antagonistic to her orphanage background.

Rajkiran as the military man is at his usual self and fills the screen. Pandiarajan attempts to chuckle the audience in the limited frames that he appears. We have seen Aashish Vidyarthi in umpteen films in the same role, in the same manner of dialogue delivery and in the same old body language. Appukutty figures in a few initial sequences and Thiruthani must be a film which he must have accepted before he did films that brought him credit for his performance.

The scenes are predictable and there are no twists or turns anywhere. Narrative style is relentlessly old fashioned and formulaic. The film sincerely follows Perarasu’s model without taking a detour anywhere. Trying to find foibles in this story is futile because the film is set for a particular set of audience but Perarasu as director has not satisfied them. The pace and the spunk we saw in his Sivakasi and Thirupachi are missing in Thiruthani.

Songs tuned in by him are nothing spectacular but a couple of them are melodious. And adhering to the rule of overseas locations for song sequences, Thiruthani has also gone out but sadly to the same place for almost all songs. There are scenes on Vijay and Ajith just to satiate their fans.

There is nothing much to discuss about technical aspects in Thiruthani. It is appalling to note a few action sequences lifted straight from a few popular Tamil movies. Some shots are too pixilated.   Even for people who just want some kind of a mindless entertainer at the end of a hard day’s work, Thiruthani does not do justice.

Verdict: Perarasu disappoints his fans