Spoilers ahead…
Read the full review on Film Companion, here: http://www.filmcompanion.in/article/theeran-adhigaaram-ondru-movie-review
The thing to note about DSP Theeran (Karthi), the protagonist of H Vinoth’s Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru (Theeran – Chapter One), is that he’s a realistic cop — at least to the extent that a big-budget Tamil film, with a big hero, will allow for realism. He does not get a traditional hero-entry scene. He’s introduced quietly, as he’s undergoing police training with several others. Of course, he’s at the centre of the frame. Of course, he gets the highest marks. Of course, he knows better than anyone else the right way to handle a knife at a crime scene. He makes killer PowerPoint presentations, with killer fonts (no ordinary Times Roman for him). He even intuits the last words of a woman who was murdered, and he wasn’t even at the scene.
And yet, note the stretch where his team is trying to break a witness. His colleagues have failed. Theeran strides in and aims a kick at the witness who’s strapped to a chair. The kick topples him, and you think that’s it. But the man still won’t talk. Or take how the heroine angle (Rakul Preet Singh, as Priya) is handled. It’s miles from your average masala-cop movie. This isn’t Sethupathi or Saamy, and Karthi is just the right kind of star for this situation — star enough to register a terrific presence, and yet not superstar enough that his character has to be superhuman. You buy him as a hero, putting a shirt on in gratuitous slo-mo. You also buy him as a mere man.
Continued at the link above.
Copyright ©2017 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Vivek narain
November 17, 2017
The scenes of cop kicking the chair or villain pushing the head into a water container, are not original at all, being reminiscent of Zanzeer and Casino Royale. The thugee cult of UP, the bawaria tribe also known as kachcha baniyan gang, operate in separate groups and can never be eliminated. And there is a strong surpicion that many of the mayhem attributed to bawaria tribe are actually masterminded by local police with the help of local hoodlums attired in kachcha baniyan to allude the presence of bawaria gang. Living in Lucknow i should know the reality, so much for realism, at ground zero.
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Anuja Chandramouli
November 17, 2017
Yay!!!! It’s a welcome return to form for Karthi. Delighted to discover that the dude who delivered that power packed performance in Paruthiveeran is very much alive and kicking. (No thanks to Mani Ratnam who tried to do to him what Adi and Yash Chopra did to SRK.) And what an antagonist he had with Abhimanyu Singh! Loved his performance in Rakta Charitra and he is feral and frickin fierce here. I nearly fainted when that blazing gaze scorched the big screen, brimming over with implacable ferocity. And his sidekicks were pretty scary too!! Brrr… Dacoits!!
I think Karthi and Abhimanyu helped smooth over the rough bits in the screenplay. This director is worth watching! Adored so many well thought out touches and the occasional subtle yet effective humour. If only Vinod had made the bloated screenplay more streamlined and pared off a good 40 minutes, what a film this would have been.
Why oh why did that horrendous item number have to be included? Why can’t our film makers kiss these stupid things goodbye? Still it was all worth it to see Karthi display those fine acting chops to such glorious effect! And I am praying Pa Ranjith casts Abhimanyu Singh in Kaala… Wouldn’t that be something?
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brangan
November 18, 2017
Anuja Chandramouli: No thanks to Mani Ratnam who tried to do to him what Adi and Yash Chopra did to SRK.
Seriously? Even Kaatru Veliyidai’s defenders agree that it’s a flawed film, but it’s not even in the same universe as “what Adi and Yash Chopra did to SRK”.
Find me one moment in the YRF canon where the hero feels his failings as a man will make him an unfit father, or where the hero resents (and extravagantly mocks) the heroine when she dares offer an opinion about his “area of expertise” (coming off like a total prick in the process), or where the hero goes on to make a complete arsehole of himself in front of the heroine’s parents…
I mean, hate the film all you want, but at least hate it for the right reasons! 🙂
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Anuja Chandramouli
November 18, 2017
‘I mean, hate the film all you want, but at least hate it for the right reasons! 🙂’
Ok I earned that 😃 Sometimes my Mani fangirl (loved him all the way to Alaipayuthe and yeah parts of Ayutha Ezhuthu were good) turned vicious detractor schtick gets completely out of hand. But actually my comment was not about the film itself but the attempted image makeover for Karthi (the clean – shaven, urbane somewhat metrosexualized look insofar as it was possible for a toxic alpha male character) which I felt sat very uneasily with him and it showed in that patchy, sub – par performance in KV. Think the largely negative reviews prompted Karthi to take stock and redeem himself with that searing, high – intensity role in DAO. I thought he was really good in Madras as well. If he picks his roles and the people he works with carefully in the manner of Dhanush, I see awards galore in the near future for this talented actor.
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Pavan
November 18, 2017
Good to see Karthi in a film that needs him in the way he is. I guess this is one of his most realistic characters till date (want to discount Thozha though it gave him a very relatable character to play).
The action sequence with the bus reminded me of Mad Max, but that’s not complaining. Having said that, I feel the romance didn’t belong here. Though like BR points out, the contrast of nice and nasty was interesting, an approach as frank as Visaranai would have made a huge positive difference. Having said that, it is a subjective opinion and feel free to disagree.
Anuja Chandramouli: No thanks to Mani Ratnam who tried to do to him what Adi and Yash Chopra did to SRK.
I agree that SRK’s typecast as the eternal romantic man alive was due to YRF and Adi. But, I think we should recollect that they did give SRK moments to shine as an actor, beyond many others in the trade. I don’t know a star who embraced his feminine side this well and yet manage to connect himself with the male audience. And there were films of YRF like Chak De India and Fan, which we recollect as two of SRK’s “realistic” performances in his career. Surely the former one at least.
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ganesh iyer
November 18, 2017
@vivek narain do you guys really need bring “not being original”even for kicking a chair. What the way he holds his gun? Please grow up
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Udhay Sankar
November 18, 2017
Good review. Loved the film for the parts it worked. One way to bypass such laborious romance is to put the lead guy in an established marriage at the beginning. Saves precious screen time and the character is ripe for payoffs later on.
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jaga_jaga
November 18, 2017
Here is my opinion of the movie:
See it after you read BR’s review. I felt it was amazing. Probably because I was already prepared for all those minuses which BR alluded to?
BR, some questions for you (and lots of spoiler alerts for others):
(a) you say that the movie can be packaged better. How was it possible to? I felt that given that the story does cover the breadth and width of India, it needed all that time.
Only way the running time could be reduced, is by entirely getting rid of the personal side of Dheeran. Was his marriage essential to this movie? Why romance? Why wife? Why should she be troubled?
Make Dheeran single, and nothing will change in the story, actually!
(b) Has there ever been any Tamil movie which has chronicled the non-tamil tribes so extensively, and so eloquently? Not just in a satirical/nonsensical way. This was entirely new, and very refreshing.
(c) The item song, whether it can be dispensed with or not I believe is a matter of taste! But given the rustic background, it seemed very appropriate. Given this Omkar Singh’s animalistic-like feature, why would he not have fun, having achieved such a major breakthrough?
Some more points:
Aairathil Oruvan (Selvaraghavan one) immediately popped-up in my mind, given the tribal setting, Karthi as the hero, and the mystic but true sentiment echoing throughout. Even the final touch when the less sophisticated folks perish, reminds me of AO.
What an irony that when the dacoits come to pillage Satya’s place (and murder the inmates), the phrase “jeevan (or zindagi) anmol hain” written on their truck is focused upon. Nice touch that director!
The police informer is a “Pandit”, and he gets away from the dacoits! Given the attention paid to the details, does it refer to some kind of how the sly Brahmin ditches his kind-of, sort-of cohorts??
The camouflages used were brilliant! The idea of wolf hunting, and the same ploy being used to hunt the wolves, are amazing!
Only confusing point for me:
When the cops go to this Banwar Singh’s village, how did they escape out of the village. Karthi says Lathi charge, and is that enough for the cops to counter an entire village of angry, stick yielding folks?
But once I saw it, I actually felt thankful that such movies are made, that I got to watch them, and that it made so much of sense….brilliant movie!
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Vivek narain
November 18, 2017
@ganesh iyer, You must be right, for i hold iyers to be the most learned people. In fact it’s believed that Iyers are in the know of source code of this existence.
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Dhanda Soru
November 18, 2017
SPOILERS AHEAD
Am I the only one who was perturbed by Karthi’s run-and-gun style of investigation? Yes, I understand that this is what the average cop in Tamil films does. He’s there to vanquish evil from society at all costs (even if his methods are something you’d vehemently object to in real life). But the reason it troubled me here was that the villains here were essentially the product of centuries of social ostracisation. You could – rightly, I might add – argue that the average power/money-hungry gangster/politician/gangster-cum-politician is as much an outcast as the tribals in this movie. Even so, I found it slightly troubling here. Yes, the dacoits do this out of their own volition, and they seem to be enjoying themselves when they kill. But surely a lot of this is because they’ve been raised in an almost animalistic environment, no?
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let me summarise what I did and didn’t like in this movie:
Liked:
1.) The premise. I know I’ve expressed my reservations about it. Even so, I was intrigued by it, partly because I never really knew about these groups or their killings.
2.) It was also a nice touch to have the wife die at the end. Underscores the fact that victory sometimes comes with a hefty price tag.
3.) I liked that set-piece with the buses. Was solidly done. Someone above mentioned that it reminded them of Mad Max, but I hope that it wasn’t plagiarised. It’s nice to know that our directors can stage spectacle well if they apply themselves.
4.) I also liked how the villains conversed in Hindi, and the makers had the dubbing done in Tamil. Seems like a minor thing, but it’s infuriating to see how big-budget films oftentimes have non-Tamil characters speak in comical Tamil or in a language they shouldn’t be speaking in at all (or with varying levels of fluency). Yes, I’m looking at you, Vivegam and Mersal.
5.) The editing kept things moving at a pretty breakneck speed. As such, the length of the film wasn’t as obvious as it would have been otherwise.
Disliked:
1.) The romance felt like such a cliche. Also, why do so many of the heroines in our films have Barbie Doll-esque voices? I’ve got nothing against the voice per se, but the overexposure just exacerbates the cliche.
2.) Couldn’t the force that hunts these dacoits been a little more pan-Indian? I get that this is all about stroking the Tamil ego, but a more diverse force would have made the feel more rooted.
3.) I wished some scenes breathed a little. And I wish they’d done away with some of the overemphasis. Did we really need that shot of Theeran with his wife after a colleague remarks that his wife is lucky to have a husband who cooks as well as Theeran?
4.) The background score was fine for the most part, but it was loud as fuck in others. I really wishes someone starts a YouTube channel akin to D4Darious, Film Riot etc etc in Tamil so as to educate aspiring directors on the various aspects of filmmaking.
Overall, the movie’s pretty decent, so long as you can overlook the slight dissonance between the (relative) realism and the heroism in the film.
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Ko
November 19, 2017
Theeran – My experience
Theeran Adhigaram Ondru doesn’t come close to a movie experience. This film literally has nothing new in movie terms. We start with the a group of bad guys massacring a family for loot, move onto the hero who is undergoing a training in police academy(You get where the movie is going right?), and wait for another 45 minutes before he even gets assigned to this case. Then the movie is just a 2-hour big exposition of crime heritages across in India and how a dutiful Theeran solved the highway dacoity case.
Well, where is drama? We never feel for Theeran/ yearn for him to do anything. The first direct threat from the villain comes 30 minutes before the end. What else could he do, he learns about the existence of a cop named Theeran eyeing him just five minutes before it? What else could we do as an audience do but watch Theeran play it with nothing much at stake to root for him? The love sequences don’t belong to this movie. The director himself said in an interview the love sequences were just there to pep up the movie for the mainstream audience. But his decision to place them across the whole movie even when the heroine is in comatose doesn’t go well. You keep running into more and more cliches as the movie proceeds. The stylistic choices doesn’t help either. Tarantino-ish fonts in a cop presentation, black-white massacre scenes underlined by graphic freeze frames…. You can see the confusion as whether to present the film as a Realistic movie or a Movie movie.
It could just have worked as a good reportage. After all the film takes us into to the animation sequences, television news(Podhigai), crime-series(Kutram Nadanthatu Enna?) of the period and keeps throwing the facts to the viewer one after the other(often restating them). The pacing of the movie doesn’t help drama either. The sequence are juxtaposed one after other rapidly. It feels like a new-gen well-researched trademark Hari cop thriller.
At the end of the movie, an upcoming cop salutes Theeran. If the intention of the movie is to make the audience salute with him at that point, then it a complete miss but if it is just meant to be a reportage you get much more of them in literal terms before final credits roll up. Bingo!
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kaizokukeshav
November 20, 2017
I think in Kabhi Alvida na Kehna SRK was portrayed as a decent loser-father, the aftermath of what Karthi thought he would become
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hikicha
November 20, 2017
@Dhanda Soru – it looks like the Pan Indian Efforts were made by TN police ( in reality ) as the push came from then TN CM JJ in 2003
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mrinalnarayan
November 20, 2017
The movie reminded me of Captain Prabhakaran.
Dacoitry, There is also a diluted Aatama Thaerottama here which hardly adds any value cinematically, The family getting affected – pattern. Wasn’t there a dog character there as well? Or was it Pulan Visaranai..
Liked Theeran overall because the parts that worked played out so well like the review says and also the performances. The Masala was balanced. But so many significant things rushed up. And expected a bit more focus that Sathuranga Vettai had.
I hope Karthi will keep things balanced (I sort of liked him in Kaatru Veliyidai too – especially climax) experimenting with new directors like Ranjith, Vinoth..unlike Surya who just want to attend to the masses / be a 5th grade Tamil text book shoving all the lessons down people’s throats..
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Aadhy
November 20, 2017
Dhanda Soru : ” I found it slightly troubling here. Yes, the dacoits do this out of their own volition, and they seem to be enjoying themselves when they kill. But surely a lot of this is because they’ve been raised in an almost animalistic environment, no?”
Yes, I also felt a bit uneasy about this but to the director’s credit he seems to have atleast cared about establishing the origin of these characters and why they are this way. He doesn’t make caricaturish barbarians out of the lower caste tribes (even if their acts per se are barbaric), something way better than how Shankar, Murugadoss and Atlee depict the lungi-clad Madras basha speaking people as thugs, just to purely ego-massage the hero as he smashes them to pulp.
The pan-Indianness of the movie was quite fun. It had an old-school charm that used to be present in those 90s Vijaykanth, Sarathkumar and Arjun’s action flicks (saving the country from some national crisis). Yes the heroism was a bit over the top but Karthi pulls off that policeman-swagger quite well without being too loud.
The romance was insufferable, especially in the first half an hour. Anyway the movie depicts Theeran’s bruised police ego to provide enough motivation for him to go after the bad guys in the second half, so why have this whole girlfriend/wife arc? If you’re gonna include it anyway for commercial purposes why not just stick to the vignette-y flashback approach of the emotionally drained Theeran reminiscing about his partner and totally do away with the bland meet-cute scenes in the beginning.
Compared to the romance, I didn’t find the item number to be that annoying. I liked that the song was completely in Hindi (even if the lyrics made 0 sense), instead of making the traditionally-clad Rajasthani dancers sing something like “Azhaga poranduputta, aaradi sandanakatta” .
There were quite a few logical issues, including the dubious way Theeran and his team escape the mob onslaught in the dacoits’ village. But the tone of the second half (for the most part), solid performances from Karthi and the menacing Abhimanyu Singh, some well -choreographed action, good cinematography made up for it (the way the sun-scorched stretches of the parched Rajasthan were shot made me feel the fatigue of Theeran & co.)
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Vivek narain
November 20, 2017
Actual bawaria tribals are not diabolical, rather they are zombied vicious creatures, always on a high due to regular intake of dhatura mixed bhaang. Mindless killers simply because they have no mind left, dhatura ensures that they remain zombied for life. Fake bawaria gangs on the other hand rely on alcohol and their high profile backers.
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Ram Sedhu
November 22, 2017
Just got back home after watching the movie. You’re bang on about ‘parts being greater than whole’. The film could have been so much better had the director devoted more screen time to the investigation and the hunt rather than on silly romance. Hopefully there is an Adhigaaram Irandu. Yes, the politics of the film was kind of dodgy if you thought about it. But I will need time to think about it.
And boy, am I overjoyed that Karthi is back like this after the clusterfuck that was Kaatru Veliyidai! I was worried that he might not be able to recover from that film. He is excellent here.
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Sutheesh Kumar
November 23, 2017
https://www.newslaundry.com/2016/08/03/bulandshahr-gangrape-how-big-media-promotes-bias
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Sutheesh Kumar
November 23, 2017
Please don’t be put off by the heading in the link given above. It says that the Bawari gang and tribe are different as opposed to the claim made by the movie.
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e,hari
November 26, 2017
Good in parts thats all. Disappointment overall, expected more after BR’s review and really enjoyed Sadhuranga vettai. Coming back to DAO – It failed to really capture the intensity of robberies/murders and it did not help that there were too much back to back cut between intense and romantic scenes. When tamil movie will move beyond portraying the police meetings with the hangover of 80’s Rajasekar/SPM movies? The chase in the second half went for too long and why always these directors be so cruel testing the viewer’s eye vision by combining the night scenes with rain (one sticking point in Dhurva Natcharam). The Gang attacking Dheeran’s house scenes – after few minutes became blur with all the darkness and rain. There are always inherent risks making movies from real life incidents, specially recent ones, where the events and faces ( Mr Jangid/Om Bawaria) are still fresh in people’s minds. I really had much better fun imagining Mr Jangid running in desert chasing the goons and jumping over bus than actually Karthi doing it during the movie.
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Vipin Murali
November 29, 2017
I think the whole heroine track was so poorly written. I could not really enjoy the movie only because of that. I was so annoyed by it that I really wanted villian to kill her! so that I can get rid of her (it did not really end there though) and watch the film without any distraction!
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Purple Sky
December 3, 2017
I remember reading about the murders when it had happened. I also remember seeing isolated houses on the highway and wondering what safety these people have. While watching the movie I didnt realise that it was based in real life incidents. Infact I also commented very derisively about the efficiency of the police department. The movie is an eye opener. I think the police department deserves more such movies instead of always showing them in a bad light in every other movie. Kudos to the police team!
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Ashwin
December 10, 2017
With a good subject and case file, movie should have been made properly. I thought Theeran was screwed up by the director. A sad case of good content and bad direction. The same content on the hands of a director of for instance kurangu bommai would have been something else.
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MANK
December 10, 2017
This film turned out to be one of the rarest of rare cases. A big star , big budget mainstream film that turned out to be much better than expected. i cant remember the last time this has happened. these days, films arrive with such a publicity blitzkrieg and underwhelms the viewer. its great to see Karthi back at what he does best. he has a real earthy macho vibe that flows out of him naturally (as opposed to surya whose attempts at being macho in recent singham films are becoming extremely comical). he needs that mustache and the stubble – one of the reasons why his clean shaven metrosexual look turned out to be so distracting in Kattru veliyadai – . even the generic romance in the first hour didnt bother me , bcoz i am kind of crazy about Rakul Preeth – the only reason why i didnt mind the romantic track in Spyder as well
there are some great action sequences, especially the one on the bus .I only wish that the fight scenes – the hand to hand combat – werent so telugu masala, where the villain starts bouncing like a ping pong ball after hitting the ground, something more edgy like the fight scenes in Kuttram 23 would have worked here, as its more a police procedural and less a masala film
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Mohammed Noufal
December 16, 2017
Why oh why do we keep reverting to the loose-ponnu trope in every second movie….Even the directors who make movies with reasonably good content seems to be so walled in imaginatively that all they can conjure up are such pathetic archetypal charterers for woman….Second movie in a row I was rooting for the villain to kill of the same heroine after spyder….The movie, as good as it was, would have been better off without her role….Liked karthi’s performance in movie after a long time…. Overall a decent movie if you can somehow skip over the heroine’s portions…. And finally a big kudos to the cops…. Awesome job
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