Thirunaal is an excuse for Jiiva to wear tight shorts and eject blades from his mouth. Said blade is a multi-purpose tool – it kills enemies, opens milk packets, and even gets the hero his girl.
It finds its way into quite a few romantic scenes too. Disconcertingly, the (now) always composed Nayanthara has been reduced to a scene where she “plays” with the blade.
Forget smoking onscreen. It’s scenes like this that need a statutory warning.
*****
Bizarre fetishes aside, Thirunaal has a fairly straightforward (albeit generic) plot: An uncouth young man (Jiiva as Blade) turns away from a life of violence, saved by the love of a good woman (Nayanthara as Vidya). Nayanthara is, soporifically enough, the angel of redemption, tasked with reforming a man who doesn’t think twice about stripping a kidnapped woman.
Tall order, one would think. After all, Nayanthara is playing a school teacher. But she whips her gangster boyfriend into shape. Just like that. In the span of two songs, the Blade has a new name, a birthday, and a fiancée.
*****
The road to redemption isn’t villain free. There’s Sharath Lohithaswa (chewing on Tamil words in a way only our beloved non-Tamil villains can), Neeya Naana’s Gopinath (who should fire his barber immediately), and Joe Malloori (looking strangely bereft without a cause to rant about). The first villain is out for Blade’s blood. The second wants to look menacing with that moustache, but is really not. And the third is the tamest of the lot: he doesn’t want to see his daughter married to a guy like Blade.
These things resolve themselves, as they usually do in Tamil cinema.
*****
PS Ramnath’s Thirunaal has a zany feel to it. Blade is a curious sort of fellow. He is violent, but violence is just a means to an end. The story is really about Blade’s yearning for an emotional anchor, someone to tie himself to. After years of fending for himself, he allows himself to be taken in by the promises of his gang leader. And then, by Vidya.
Recommended
This role, as usual, is tailor-made for Jiiva. It’s practically an extension of his E avatar. It’s also an extension of Nayanthara’s Ayya persona. The schoolgirl is now a school teacher. In Ayya, she fell for the older Sarath Kumar. Here, she falls in love with someone called Blade.
We’re left wondering how a principled schoolmarm like Vidya could like someone as dispassionate and cold as Blade.
*****
Countless love stories in Tamil films show the ‘good women’ transforming the ‘bad boys’. Perhaps it’s time we saw the opposite – A sensitive young man’s love transforms the life of his mafia boss girlfriend.
Wouldn’t that be grand?
*****
The Thirunaal review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.