Thangaratham review: Director Balamurugan's film full of boring, unnecessary sequences

Thangaratham is a story that is set in Ottanchathiram. The story revolves around two truck drivers, Parama (Soundararaja) and Selva (Vettrii), both of whom make a living by ferrying the produce of the villagers to the local market.

As they are in the same business, there is a rivalry between them. The fact that those goods that arrive first in the market fetch a better price constantly results in a competition between the two truck drivers, who often race against each other.

While Parama owns the truck he drives, Selva drives the truck of Annadurai (Aadukalam Naren), a man who treats Selva like his own son.

Parama has a sister called Anandhi (Aditi Krishna), who, like her brother, initially considers Selva to be their enemy. In fact, she even suggests to the cleaner of her brother's truck that he steal diesel from Selva's vehicle in a bid to leave him stranded. He does as he is told and Selva's truck stalls just when he has to take his sick dad to the hospital. Luckily, Annadurai arrives in time to get Selva's dad admitted to the hospital and thereby saves his life.

Anandhi is overcome by guilt when she realises that her suggestion could have killed Selva's dad. She looks to make amends and helps his dad at the hospital. This results in Selva and Anandhi falling in love with each other.

Just as his love for Anandhi grows, Selva's enemity with her brother Parama too intensifies. Their fight takes a serious turn after one day, the cleaner of Selva's truck catches Parama's cleaner stealing diesel from their vehicle.

As Selva looks to take out his anger on Parama, he is stopped by Annadurai and Anandhi from doing so. However, matters get out of hand after Malaisamy (Naan Kadavul Rajendran), a farmer insulted by Parama, damages the latter's truck and sneaks out. Parama, in a fit of rage, and unaware of who actually committed the crime, believes Selva to be behind the act and craves for his blood. Meanwhile, Annadurai, realising the seriousness of the situation, sends Selva to a relative's home in another village to keep him out of harm's way even as he keeps wondering how he can normalise relations with Parama and his family. He hits upon the idea of seeking Anandhi's hand for his son, unaware that Selva is in love with Anandhi.

Parama's family is delighted at the prospect of having an alliance with Annadurai's family and readily agrees. Anandhi gets engaged to Annadurai's son and Selva, who returns to his village, plunges into gloom when he gets to know his girlfriend has got engaged to the son of a man, he loves like his father.

Selva is in a dilemma. He has to either give up the girl he loves or he has to humiliate the family of a man, who has brought him up like his own child, by announcing his love for Anandhi. What does Selva do? What he does next is what the film is all about...

The story is a very simple one but then the film does not work primarily because of the cast not being appropriate. Although Vettrii and Aadithi Krishna do a decent job as Selva and Anandhi, they don't come across as a pair. The huge difference in their heights also goes against their pairing. That apart, the accent with which Vettrii speaks Tamil doesn't give one the impression that he is from the Dindugal region. There's a strong Malayalam accent in the manner in which he speaks Tamil and that doesn't help the film.

The film has a number of boring and unnecessary sequences. For instance, there are far too many sequences involving the character of Mayilsamy played by Naan Kadavul Rajendran. Most of these sequences are in no way linked to the story’s plot and in a way, make the film cumbersome. As if the sequences weren’t enough, there is even an item song in the film.  All of this tests the patience of a viewer.

The film does have its strengths though. Soundararaja as Parama does a clean job as does Aadukalam Naren as Annadurai. Both these actors are the film's biggest plus points. Their performances, along with Tony Britto's music and cinematographer Jacob's visuals are the only highlights.

In short, director Balamurugan makes a valiant attempt at storytelling but then he will have to keep his story crisp and clean if he wishes to win the hearts of his audience.