Get set for a few thrills here and there as Pullu Giri and his gang have a go at it as if there is no tomorrow. And be the least surprised if it has already fallen off your memory logs as you get set to dig your spoon at the post-movie dinner in front of you.
There aren’t many chances that music composer Ratheesh Vega opts for while scripting the latest Jayasurya flick ‘Thrissur Pooram’ that has been directed by Rajesh Mohanan. The initial frames that involve a son watching his mother being hacked to death at the market place, sets the dice rolling, and you brace yourself up with an intuition that this is one game that you are very likely to be familiar with.
Your instincts turn out to be exactly precise, and the boy grows up into Pullu Giri (Jayasurya) a dreaded don who sends the shivers down the Thrissur town’s spine. Having fallen in love with a girl (Swathi Reddy) who develops the knee shivers seeing him in action, Giri decides to marry her, quit the underworld and turns over a new page in his life.
This isn’t as easy as it seems, as has already been seen in a hundred other films that have been based in the murky realms of the underworld, and before long, Giri finds himself at loggerheads with the dreaded don brothers (Sudev Nair & Sabumon Abdulsamad). A fierce battle ensues even as the new City Police Commissioner (Vijay Babu) tries to make them see sense, and much blood and honour are lost as the war turns from bad to worse.
All said and done, ‘Thrissur Pooram’ is the kind of film that you could continue to watch without much of a trouble, with your recliner seat pushed all the way back. This is also the kind of film that flees from your mind the moment you step out of the cinema hall, and I suspect the film makers had any other intention other than to make a film of the disposable kind.
There are the sequences and situations too that faithfully adhere to a set pattern – the attack on a family member, the traitor who could be spotted from a mile away, the loss of life of someone dear, paybacks that are delivered on time, and the chases and chills that add to the spice of it all. Everything is in place, and as expected.
There is enough violence and bravado in ‘Thrissur Pooram’ that would have fans of the genre cheering in excitement, but neither the explosive action nor the gory images compensate for the lack of emotional weight that the film suffers from. In many ways it’s a throwback to several similar action films that have explored strikingly similar themes and hardly rises above this stature of familiar entertainment.
As Pullu Giri, Jayasurya comes up with a competent performance, and with the perennial frown and the folded dhoti, ensures that he comes across as a figure that is as much feared as is adored. They even bring in an elephant to add that extra flavour, and he gets to kiss on its forehead before moving in on his foes and letting them know what he is capable of.
Surprisingly, it is Sudev Nair who scores above Sabumon Abdulsamad in ‘Thrissur Pooram’ and the fierce animal energy that we had witnessed the latter spill out in ‘Jallikkattu’ is strangely missing here. But Sudev makes up for it with a viciously good-looking smile that strikes a compromise between a snigger and a grin and ensures that his feat is nothing short of top notch.
Get set for a few thrills here and there as Pullu Giri and his gang have a go at it as if there is no tomorrow. And be the least surprised if it has already fallen off your memory logs as you get set to dig your spoon at the post-movie dinner in front of you.
Verdict: Average