8 Thottakkal (Tamil, 2017)

Sri Ganesh mostly succeeds in his debut attempt but subverting clichés associated with the police investigation thrillers and working mostly around the emotions of the protagonist and the antagonist. In spite of strong inspirations from Stray Dogs and Breaking Bad, he has been bold enough to use them, give credit and still give his own interpretation to the events.

M S Bhaskar gets the role of a lifetime where he is able to bring all his talents to the fore. He gets the space that a Manivannan or an Ilaravasu did not get in any film of note. In spite of the showy soliloquy being the cynosure, the sequences with his team and the way he tries to hide his name from Sathya shine a great deal as well.

While the Hero, Vetri is wooden in his expressions, it is not that far away from the character which is that of an introvert constantly shying away from attention. Nasser is quietly effective as the cop leading the investigation. The fact that he is willing to give away the limelight to M S Bhaskar and give space to a debutant hero speaks laurels of his preference to give priority to the story and not just his role.

Lallu and Ranjith are quite excellent in the performances as well as in their character sketches. Credit to Sri Ganesh for writing those characters that way that in spite of the relatively short screen time they make an impact and stay in the minds of the viewers.

The film has been shot incredibly well by Dinesh Babu with great set pieces (the restroom encounter especially). Shot composition and divisions while reminding of Mysskin’s films still feel relevant and fresh.

[SPOILER] In spite of being shown to be very loving to his grandparents the way Bhaskar emotes after the accidental killing of a child at the Bank seems out of place. It would fit only if Bhaskar is shown as a remorseless old man. The death hence looks forced and doesn’t fit into the narrative.

There are too many stage-play-esque dialogues that bring down the engagement quotient unsettling the audience who already know how things are going to play out. The hero bears the brunt of this especially due to his already wooden character background. Similarly, improperly placed songs and too many convenient coincidences towards the end of the film act as a downer.