Thuppaki

Vijay, though being one of the superstars in Tamil film industry, is not so popular in Telugu film industry. Few of his films were dubbed into Telugu and they too failed to draw the attention of the Telugu audience. His countable film did average business. Earlier this year, he tried to impress them with his film Snehitudu. However, as AR Murugadoss and Kajal Aggarwal are well known in the Telugu films, the film generated a lot of curiosity. In the latest flick, the director has tried to weave the story with lot of mind games. Let us see what the film is about.

Story
Jagadish (Vijay) is a secret agent in the Indian Army. As there is no war fear from any corner of the country, he goes on holiday. But terrorists plant a bomb in Mumbai and blast it. Incidentally, Jagadish catch hold of the terrorist who planted the bomb. He interrogates the terrorist. To his surprise, he comes to know that the first blast was just a sample and they had planted bombs in 12 more places across Mumbai and tries to devastate the entire city. Now, the chase between the hero and villain (Vidyut Jamwal) starts. How the hero track each terrorist and kill them? What kind of mind game the villain apply and how the hero reciprocates them? Answers to these questions should be seen on-screen.

Performance
Vijay has improved his performance and body language to suit the Telugu nativity. Because of the director's exceptional ideas, the action scenes, kidnap scenes and mind games worked out well. Vijay has showed lots of ease in the action scenes, the level of confidence that he expressed in the investigative episodes and comedy timing are very good. Kajal Aggarwal did not have much scope to perform but did her part well, as she was almost limited to dance sequences. However, the audiences did not concentrate much on her as timing of most of the songs are very bad in this film with action backdrop. Vidyut Jamwal did a very good job as a bad guy.

Technical
Cinematography by Santosh Sivan is worth mentioning in this film. Be it an action episode or a duet song, he showed his expertise with his camera on the celluloid. Though several films that came in the combination of Murugadoss and Harris Jayraj are musical hits, the tunes in this film are not so melodious. In 'Chinni Chinni Pululam...' song, Vijay did good moves, while Kajal Agarwal weaved her magic in 'Google' song. We should appreciate Jayraj for his music in re-recording as the background score in investigative episodes is exceptionally well and lifted many scenes. Last but not the least, Murugadoss, who penned the screenplay and story, gave a lot of exercise on it. Especially, penning different kinds of mind games for hero and villain is a complex task and their picturisation on the celluloid with impressive narration is another intricate task. But Murugadoss has managed well.

Verdict: Thuppakki is a good action-thriller.