Tightly based on the French movie Nuit Blanche, Thoongavanam is a wannabe-taut-thriller which loses out from the original somewhere. May be it is the duration (89 vs 120 minutes) or may be it is just that we are too used to 5-songs, 4-fights, 3-melodrama, 2-parts, 1-climax formula.
Kamal acts as the corrupt-cop-cum-drug-buster-cum-divorced-husband-who-gives-tough-love-to-his-teenage-son.
A lot of ordinary scenes become extraordinary just because of him - even a simple facial twitch (e.g., father-son conversation while dropping him at school) is sufficient to elevate the experience. So nothing new there. But still at 61, doing his own stunts, running around like a 30-year-old is amazing to say the least. Let us just say that even his wound acts!
Prakash Raj and Sampath as drug-lords were more there for comic relief, me thinks. Prakash Raj even wonders how he would face the mother of one his dead henchmen, who was killed by Kamal & in another scene offers to waive a customer's bill after he bashes him up. So, the menace is kind of lost.
At no stage did one feel the angst of a father who is desperate to save his son - except for a couple of scenes, where Kamal bashes up the molester repeatedly or where he breaks down (no, not Nayakan style ;-) when Trisha feigns ignorance about the whereabouts of cocaine. The latter scene ends with a little gem when she casually tells where the bag is. Oh, by the way, the kid acts well and is kinda cute!
The film can boast of some excellent close-quarter fights, especially the one between Trisha and Kamal. Kudos to the director in not pulling the punches (literally!) in that sequence by allowing her to bash him up.
In a classic pop-reference to Anbe Sivam, one of the characters (who else? Santhanabharathi!), chides Kamal for being preachy and that he makes movies for the elite and not the masses :-)
Thankfully no songs, except a Viswaroopam-like-song that blares out as the end credits roll on.
As most of the movie has been shot within a night club (aptly named as Insomnia), one felt a bit too claustrophobic. Same places. Same people. Same blaring music. Same mooching in the corners, Same boozing away to glory. Same Kamal. Same blood... (no, not the Vadivelu dialogue!)
Tamil movies have moved quite ahead in its criminal activities, depicting them that is. Guns, Coke, Girls, Kisses. (though the last one is not a criminal activity! Kamal has been missing that on-screen activity over the last few movies; here he compensates nicely by doing it not once, not twice but three times with Madhu Shalini! No wonder she asks right after the third one, 'Are you married?')
Overall, Thoongavanam is a good one-time watch on an original DVD.
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