Por Thozhil movie review: Debutant Vignesh Raja delivers an engaging buddy cop film

Name: Por Thozhil
Released: 2023-06-08T15:14:54+05:30

Por Thozhil review: Despite following all the tropes of a buddy cop movie, debutant Vignesh Raja has come up with an enjoyable genre film that manages to hold your attention throughout.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Ashok Selvan in Por Thozhil.

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Por Thozhil movie review: Debutant Vignesh Raja delivers an engaging buddy cop film

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There is a gripping moment in Por Thozhil when the prime suspect of serial killings in Trichy is stopped at a level crossing by a police inspector. He is scared to approach the suspect, but his senior officer Lokanathan (Sarath Kumar) carefully guides him over the phone. When the suspect says he is returning after a night show, he is asked to show the ticket. After a lot of searching through his car, he produces one. However, the senior officer on the phone is not convinced. The inspector, who has seen the film, is asked to casually strike up a conversation with the suspect about the fight sequences in the movie. It is a trap because the film doesn’t have one, and this writing is just brilliant because Por Thozhil doesn’t have one either. Such streaks of brilliance are not something you get often in a genre film like Por Thozhil in Tamil.

Por Thozhil Pazhagu (Learn the art of war), a line from Tamil poet Bharathiyaar’s Puthiya Aathi Chuvadi, is the inspiration for the title of the film, which is also a coming-of-age drama about an anxious cop. Instead of going for the entire line, just choosing Por Thozhil and leaving Pazhagu is clever because the director trusts that the audience will understand the intention. He believes they will finish the line in their head, and that trust is seen in the writing as well, which is minimalistic and doesn’t try to walk you through everything under the sun like most of our films. Por Thozhil is not without expositions, but they are downplayed and forgivable.

ALSO READ | Sarath Kumar on staying relevant: ‘When you do a good job with the character given to you, you will be watched’

Por Thozhil follows all the tropes of a buddy cop film to a tee. Lokanathan is the archetype of the veteran grumpy, misanthropic, reclusive, and brooding cop. He is asked by a senior officer, a friend, to mentor DSP Prakash (Ashok Selvan), a new member of the crime branch in Chennai. On that very day, they are given a high-profile serial killer case in Trichy. Two young women are killed with the same modus operandi, and the duo should find the killer before he strikes again. Lokanathan is hostile to Prakash and bullies him and exploits his anxiety to make him leave the mission. But Prakash is resilient, and the game is afoot.

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The success of Por Thozhil lies in the simplistic approach of the makers. There’s no fat here in terms of heroism or romance. Vignesh just sticks to Lokanathan and Prakash and the story at hand. Maybe, the moral science lesson towards the end might have been an added weight, but even the preaching is done in a tout manner that you are not even given time to complain. Yet, the film is not without its problems. The biggest one is the characterisation of the psychopath, which was inconsistent and a bit contrived to aid the twist. To avoid spoilers, let me just say that it felt like a convenience rather than a real person. It was a bit off because the rest of the story is as genuine as it can get. Writers Vignesh Raja and Alfred Prakash, who are otherwise pretty conscious of things, should have figured out another way out of the problem.

Nevertheless, Por Thozhil is an engaging crime thriller that holds your attention throughout, and a huge credit goes to the restrained performances of both Sarath Kumar and Ashok Selvan. When the script is doing all the talking, the two just deliver nothing more than what is demanded. When the film ended with the promise of a sequel, I was happy. Por Thozhil might turn out to be the long-overdue buddy cop crime thriller franchise in Tamil cinema.

Por Thozhil movie cast: Sarath Kumar, Ashok Selvan
Por Thozhil movie director: Vignesh Raja
Por Thozhil movie rating: 3.5/5

Kirubhakar Purushothaman

Kirubhakar Purushothaman is a Principal Correspondent with Indian Express and is based out of Chennai. He has been writing about Tamil cinema and a bit about OTT content for the past eight years across top media houses. Like many, he is also an engineer-turned-journalist from Tamil Nadu, who chose the profession just because he wanted to make cinema a part of his professional life. ... Read More

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