Thankam: "Performances & screenplay for large parts makes it worthy of its title!!!"

Over the past decade or so, we have had quite a few production houses that had made a name for themselves with the quality of movies that they had come out with. One such company is Bhavana Studios that has quite a few prominent names such as Syam Pushkaran, Dileesh Pothan, Fahad Faasil etc. With movies like "Kumbalangi Nights", "Joji" etc to their credit, expectations were nigh high when they announced their latest venture, "Thankam" helmed by Saheed Arafath. Though it clashed with "Pathaan" & "Alone" at the box office, it still managed to hold its own which is testament of the fact that they have managed to impress the audience yet again. 

It would be fair to admit that Syam Pushkaran is undoubtedly one of the finest writers that we have in the industry presently. In his latest effort, he chose to focus on the life of Muthu (Biju Menon) & Kannan (Vineeth Sreenivasan) involved in the gold trade who take on a huge amount of responsibility & risk as part of their profession. Their business has been moving along reasonably well until Kannan had to make a business trip to Mumbai & gets picked up by the police in Tamil Nadu for his alleged involvement in gold smuggling. However, he was let off for lack of credible evidence but when he goes missing in Mumbai with a sizable quantity of gold; it raises questions as to whether there was more to the whole situation than just met the eye.

Well from the trailer itself it is evident that it is more of a police procedural drama yet at the same time it made sure that light moments were also sprinkled liberally. It comes across as Rajeev Ravi's "Kuttavum Shikshayum" from a bird's eye view , however up close it also looks keenly into the interpersonal dynamics of the main characters. Saheed does justice to the script as the plot is revealed in layers & we are kept invested in it until the very end. However from a personal point of view, the climax turned out to be rather underwhelming, pretty much like "Dear Friend", as I felt that the end Saheed had employed definitely required much more focus on Kannan's character & more clarity was required with regard to his actions. The makers need to be appreciated for their spot on casting choices (the best since "Nna Thaan Case Kodu") & the attention paid to the organic transition of languages between characters. On the technical side, Gautham Shankar's choice of mellow colours & dim lighting to convey the rather grim feel of the sequences & characters was interesting while Bijibal's music was fine. 

As I mentioned earlier, the artists that had lined up for this project were impressive & almost all of them have done a praise worthy job. The decision to bring in the talented Girish Kulkarni was smart & he has done a fantastic job along with Biju Menon, who once again proved that he is undoubtedly one of the most talented artists in the industry. Vineeth has steadily improved his performances over the years, to the extent that this will go down in his resume as one of his best to date. Another person that deserves mention in the same breath is Vineeth David Thattil who might not have as important a role as the above three, but shared an excellent chemistry with Biju which produced quite a few hilarious sequences. Among the female artists, Aparna Balamurali did a decent job in the limited screen space allotted to her along with Indira Prasad as Ambika Chechi. As for the rest of the cast, the instagram girl, her boyfriend Vicky etc. have all done their parts well. 

Verdict: Bhavana Studios has yet again proved their reliability in the production of quality ventures. Both Syam & Saheed deserve praise for coming out with a compelling script & capturing it well on the screen. In short, dont miss it!!!

Rating: 3.5/5

Regards...Ben