Read the full article on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/column-thambi-karthi-jeethu-joseph-jyotika-sathyaraj-baradwaj-rangan
Unlike in ‘Drishyam’, the convolutions in ‘Thambi’ aren’t organic. The narrative gears are lubricated with snake oil.
Spoilers ahead…
Jeethu Joseph opens Thambi with a god’s-eye-view shot that looks upon four trucks, whose drivers are in some sort of argument (and some sort of shady deal). The camera zooms down, coming closer to earth, closer to those trucks and the people around them — and one of them, named Saravanan, gets hit on the head. It’s all very fancy and it all seems to mean something — until it doesn’t. By the end of the film, you realise there was no need for all this visual trickery. (Unless you just want to say: What a cool shot!) We needn’t have seen those trucks or those people. It’s a metaphor for the movie. Things keep happening and they seem to mean something — until they don’t.
Now, you could argue that that’s the very nature of a red herring. It’s meant to divert our attention until the actual reveal makes us slap our foreheads and say: Oh my god’s-eye-view! But the red herring has to fit into the overall design. Take the scene in the second half where a cop is shot dead. The killer doesn’t seem the kind of guy who’d do such a thing. At one point, he is revealed as EVIL, someone who will eliminate everyone who gets in the way. But later, he comes across like the Mohanlal character in Drishyam, a GOOD man who’s simply covering up for his family. Is he both? Thambi doesn’t make a convincing case. Unlike in Drishyam, the convolutions here aren’t organic. The narrative gears are lubricated with snake oil.
Continued at the link above.
Copyright ©2019 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
shaviswa
December 23, 2019
Oh man. I thought this movie would be good given the cast and crew. Bummer!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Heisenberg
July 29, 2020
Found this on Quora Today: A True case remarkably similar to plot of Thambi 😀
Nicholas Barclay vanished from a basketball game near his house in 1994. His parents prepared themselves for the possibility that they may never see their son again, but they had hope of finding him.
Three years later, their son turned up alive and well…
The family were excited upon hearing their son’s voice, but despite the reunion, something was off…
The boy looked nothing like the boy who disappeared.
Nicholas Barclay had blonde hair and blue eyes.
This child had brown eyes and brown hair.
He also had a French accent.
Nicholas told everyone that his eyes changed due to the chemicals his captors used, his hair was dyed, and his French accent developed living in Europe for so long.
The family believed him and accepted Nicholas into their home for 6 months until the FBI took fingerprints and blood samples.
It wasn’t Nicholas Barclay. He was then a 23-year-old con-man, Frederic Bourdin.
After his exposure, Bourdin made claims that the family really knew he wasn’t Nicholas all along, and that they were just putting on a show for the police. He insisted that they killed the boy, and hid his body.
Lies upon lies, he eventually ended up in jail for 6 years…
https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-most-unexpected-twist-ever
LikeLiked by 1 person