Ivan Thanthiran movie review: Gautham Karthik film is logically inconceivable

Gautham Karthik's Ivan Thanthiran is an okayish film that may keep you entertained for the most part if you can suppress your ability of critical thinking for a couple of hours. It is directed by Kannan and also stars Shraddha Srinath and RJ Balaji.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Written by Manoj Kumar R

Bengaluru | Updated: June 30, 2017 03:53 PM IST

3 min read

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Gautham Karthik's Ivan Thanthiran movie review

Gautham Karthik’s Ivan Thanthiran movie review

Ivan Thanthiran movie cast: Gautham Karthik, Shraddha Srinath, RJ Balaji
Ivan Thanthiran movie director: Kannan
Ivan Thanthiran movie rating: 2 stars

In Ivan Thanthiran, Sakthi, played by Gautham Karthik, is an engineer who runs a gadget shop with his friend Balaji, played by RJ Balaji in Chennai. He is an expert in both software and hardware engineering and nurtures ambitions of starting his own tech company to challenge Apple’s supremacy in the Indian gadget market. He builds his own brand of smartphone and calls it ‘Berikai’, which means Pears in Tamil. Calling the ambitious project of the lead character so, director Kannan, who has also written the story and screenplay, neither inspires laughs or make us believe that Sakthi is serious about his goal.

HRD Minister Devaraj (Super Subbarayan) suspends many engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu for apparently not following the guidelines of the government, claiming that these colleges are not producing quality engineers. While it may seem like a right move, the minister actually uses his office to extort money from the college managements. Sakthi, who was installing the CCTV cameras at the minister’s house when Devaraj made this announcement to the press, criticises him, which is heard by minister’s brother-in-law. As a result, the minister refuses to pay Sakthi’s fee, which is Rs 23,000. Sakthi won’t let it slide, he visits the minister’s house every day for the money, until one day he is insulted by the minister’s brother-in-law in front of everyone. He vows to make the minister pay for everything.

He decides to anonymously expose the minister’s dealings with the engineering college managements. He uses all the resources at his disposal to pull it off. He has all the fancy toys, like a micro-GPS tracker that could be installed in a 100 rupees note, bug camera and other cool spy gadgets that we can find at Batman’s safehouse or at the workshop of British intelligence. And yes, I forgot to mention about the state of the art computers like the one’s used by Tony Stark in Iron Man series.

If you are ready to overlook these logical follies, you may find Ivan Thanthiran as fairly entertaining. The film has its moments, mostly when Balaji narrates the pros and cons of being an engineer. The director has also tried to show the difficulties the students and their families go through at engineering colleges. He has achieved it with the time-honoured tradition of making a top student from a humble family commit suicide. But, showing an award-winning engineering student, with the potential of becoming a scientist, waiting tables at a restaurant for a salary of Rs 12,000 is a bit of a stretch. There is a reason why the majority of the parents enroll their children in an engineering course in the country.

Shraddha Srinath’s role as Sakthi’s girlfriend contributes very little to take the story forward. However, the action is entertaining with believable stunt sequences.

Ivan Thanthiran is an okayish film that may keep you entertained for the most part if you can suppress your ability of critical thinking for a couple of hours.

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