Por Thozhil Review (2023)

There are many a tropes that Por Thozhil has, as a film belonging to the murder mystery genre, but the sincerity of the direction and acting, help overcome these, eventhough it ends up being a serviceable entry in murder mystery genre. The one line is the new joinee Prakash, played by Ashok Selvan, under SP Loganathan played by a terrific Sarathkumar, investigate a string of murders.

To what does a trope belong to? To the genre or the story? The story here as mentioned above rests on the framework of the genre. So is the genre fitted into the story or the story fitted into the genre? Here the genre is simple: A murder mystery. The tropes are also familiar: A Red herring, A Red herring in the villain, Emotional flashbacks justifying the villain’s action in his view and a final chase. The problem in Por Thozhil is the fact that the tropes are extremely familiar so the sincerity or tension generated by the brilliant direction and actors falls apart.

But the writing also has a few aces up its sleeve in terms of the villains and especially in the case of the backstory of the villains. Unlike Ratsasan, where the backstory had black and white characters, the backstory here has morally complex characters, who are good in one aspect but terrible in another aspect. This brings in a sense of connectivity which is felt when the villain makes his first kill or the subsequent kills. Or the fact that the Theorotical Prakash and Experienced Loganathan both reach to the same end result in a series of tense convos and book searching.

But the same writing is also the one which gives us a somewhat slippery subplot about the character development of the protagonist to the hero, Prakash, who is shown to be a scaredy pants guy and struggles to go to the bathroom in the dark, and how he ultimately becomes a “real” police officer.

The arc is a bit inconsistent and seems to exist more to bring Prakash to Loganathan, who in turn has an actual satisfying arc, mainly by SarathKumar’s stoic but understated acting, which sells to us the years of experience he has. His world weariness and words of wisdom “Bayapadravan Kozhai Illa, Bayanthu Oodravan Kozhai” consistently match his physical presence of mind, where he doesn’t turn quickly when the villain is revealed to be behind him, but has a slow turn.

Thus, since the Prakash arc becomes a bit middling, the portions with Nikhila Vimal as Veena who is the tech assistant for the investigation, also hangs between wanting to become a romance and maintaining it as worktime flirting which becomes a bit annoying and unnecessary.

By and large however, the film engages you, thanks in part to the brilliant directing by Vignesh Raja, who as a debutante uses no handheld and primarily tripods and Steadicam shots and still achieves a reasonable amount of tension to be infused into the audience and maintains the consistency throughout the film in terms of mood for the most part and tension and suspense which is elevated by the impressive portions featuring Sarath Babu, whose flashback is as impressive as it is hard hitting both in terms of its content where we feel his pain and also form wherein the directors use of match cuts is concerned.

As the murders progress, the kill of the victim is cut to the washing of the characters face which is similar to him cleansing himself of 2 things: the kill and the result of the kill (you’ll know it when u see the film). Another impressive use is in a scene where Sarath Babu’s character is being questioned and the tension is released by the sound of a train passing. Or in another scene where Prakash asks about hiding the truth to the media when the lights turn “on”.

These little little things add to the overall style of the film which eventhough has a pretty traditional story, gets elevated to an engaging ride by the filmmaking.