Movie Name : Thudarum

Release Date : April 26, 2025
123telugu.com Rating : 2.75/5
Starring : Mohanlal, Arjun Ashokan, Shobana
Director : Tharun Moorthy
Producer : M. Renjith
Music Director : Jakes Bejoy
Cinematographer : Shaji Kumar
Editor : Nishadh Yusuf, Shafeeque V. B.
Related Links : Trailer

After starring in the massive and controversial film L2: Empuraan, Mollywood star Mohanlal takes a different path with a small movie called Thudarum. Released simultaneously in Malayalam and Telugu, here’s our take on the film. Read on for the full review.

Story:

Shanmugam, known as Benz (Mohanlal), is a middle-class taxi driver who treasures his black Ambassador car, treating it almost like a family member. He leads a content life with his wife Lalitha (Sobhana), son Pavan (Thomas Mathew), and daughter (Amritha Varshini). One day, when his car meets with an accident, the mechanic misuses it for illegal activities. In a desperate bid to reclaim his only source of livelihood, Benz approaches SI Benny (Binu Pappu). However, CI George Mathen (Prakash Varma) intervenes, setting off a chain of strange events. Benz is then asked to drive the officers to a wedding and later to a deserted forest area, where a shocking revelation awaits. What exactly happened, and are the officers involved in something more sinister? Thudarum unfolds the answers.

Plus Points:

Mohanlal is in top form yet again, delivering a deeply nuanced performance. He perfectly captures the simplicity and quiet dignity of an everyday man, effortlessly drawing viewers into Benz’s small world.

Especially in the second half, his restrained emotions and expressive acting stand out, reminding us once again why he remains one of the finest actors in Indian cinema. His commitment to the role, never once playing it like a ‘superstar’, reflects the respect he holds for his craft.

Prakash Varma is a revelation as a shrewd, calculating officer. His portrayal is so convincing that it evokes genuine anger from the audience, which speaks volumes about his performance.

Despite limited screen time, Sobhana leaves a lasting impact with her composed and graceful presence. Binu Pappu, Thomas Mathew, and the rest of the supporting cast also do a neat job in their respective roles.

Minus Points:

The story treads familiar ground and doesn’t offer much freshness. It’s a narrative that seasoned cinephiles would easily recognise. Writer K R Sunil and director Tharun Moorthy could have worked on a more layered and unpredictable script to truly elevate the experience.

The first half, although it sets up the premise, gradually loses momentum and feels sluggish after a point. Even after the interval, the film takes time to pick up pace again. This uneven narrative flow might test the patience of some viewers.

While it is commendable that the film avoids mass commercial elements like exaggerated action scenes and punch dialogues, the absence of high-voltage moments also leaves certain sections feeling a bit dry.

Several moments in the film might remind viewers of similar stories in the genre, and the major twist is not too hard to guess. A stronger and more gripping screenplay could have avoided the feeling of déjà vu.

Technical Aspects:

Tharun Moorthy shows flashes of skill in his direction but struggles to maintain a consistently engaging pace. A racier and more gripping narrative could have made a significant difference to the film’s overall impact.

Shaji Kumar’s cinematography is appealing, capturing the moods and settings effectively. Jakes Bejoy’s background score complements the story well, enhancing key emotional moments without overpowering them. However, the editing leaves room for improvement, particularly in the first half where tighter cuts would have made the film more crisp and engaging.

The production values are decent, and the Telugu dubbing is fairly acceptable. However, a glaring issue is the Telugu version itself – the movie title is misspelled compared to how it was originally promoted, and several spelling errors appear even in the opening credits. This reflects a clear lack of attention and interest from the team behind the Telugu release.

Verdict:

On the whole, Thudarum is a modest revenge drama elevated mainly by Mohanlal’s heartfelt performance. However, the predictable storyline, sluggish pacing, and lack of major emotional peaks prevent it from reaching its full potential. It is a watchable film if you are a Mohanlal fan or appreciate slow-burn dramas, but for general audiences, it is advisable to keep expectations in check.

123telugu.com Rating: 2.75/5

Reviewed by 123telugu Team 

The title and theme of “The Trouble with Jessica” echo one of Alfred Hitchcock’s lesser films, “The Trouble with Harry,” better remembered now for Shirley MacLaine’s debut performance and the gorgeous fall scenery than for its chilly dark humor about a dead body that keeps being moved around. Here, the title character, Jessica (Indira Varma), is dead for most of this film, and it is also darkly humorous, sometimes lacerating, but not at all chilly. The tone is heightened and the stakes are savage as the score turns from classical to urgent, dissonant jazz.

Like “The Menu,” “Death of a Unicorn,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Mickey 17,” “Glass Onion,” and other recent eat-the-rich-themed films, “The Trouble with Jessica” gives us wealthy, privileged characters faced with dire circumstances that expose their hypocrisy, cluelessness, and willingness to jettison morality at the expense of those with less power. It is divided into segments separated by arch chapter titles: “The Trouble with Friends,” “The Trouble with Neighbors,” “The Trouble with Rich People,” etc.

As it begins, Sarah (tiny, husky-voiced Shirley Henderson) and her husband Tom (Alan Tudyk) are getting ready for a dinner party in their spacious and luxurious London home. Tom is making his specialty dessert, a sort of French cherry pie called clafoutis, which will play a major role throughout the evening. We will learn that Sarah is under a lot of stress and that this dinner will be their last party in the house, so it is especially important to her.

The guests they are expecting are their closest friends, Richard (Rufus Sewell) and his wife, Beth (Olivia Williams), who call just before arrival to say that they are bringing Jessica with them.  Shirley is very annoyed. She calls Jessica “Little Miss ‘Aren’t I Fascinating’” and complains that she shamelessly flirts with Tom. Jessica has just published a best-seller Shirley describes as “400 pages of confession porn.”

The friends have known each other since college, and in Tom’s home office, there is a photograph of the five of them in cap and gown at their college graduation. When they sit down to dinner, the conversation reflects a deep history and understanding of each other’s vulnerabilities, some of which inspire sympathy (Beth is protective of Jessica) and some reflect long-standing arguments. Richard and Beth spar over his career as a lawyer representing men accused of rape. He admits he hates cross-examining the victims and does not like his clients, but he is good at it and it makes him a lot of money. Beth, who counsels women survivors of domestic violence, has the privilege of feeling that she is morally superior while she benefits from the money Richard makes by not minding a bit of moral compromise. This is clearly a persistent source of conflict in their relationship, but compared to what comes next, their discussion is a simmer, not a blast.

The blast comes from Jessica, who is sharp-tongued and manipulative. She tells Richard he is a charming amoralist and Beth she is “a po-faced do-gooder.”  She accuses the couples of being boring and unfairly lucky. This prompts Sarah to tell the group that Tom’s most recent architectural project has gotten them into such a dire financial bind that they have had to sell the house and are desperately hoping to close the deal immediately. This is the first, but not the last, time someone in the film will say that if things do not go well, it will “end me.” 

The one who is ended, though, is Jessica, who steps out into the garden and commits suicide. Sarah’s first reaction is that if they call the police, the people buying their home will cancel, and their last hope of financial stability will be gone. She is the first to show us that under pressure, even people who like to think of themselves as “good” will realize that they are more selfish than they allowed themselves to admit. Sarah’s view is that it does not matter where Jessica died, so why not move her? When Tom objects, she barks, “You don’t have the luxury of a conscience right now.”

At first, Tom, Beth, and Richard are horrified and want to call the police immediately. But as the evening wears on, and the doorbell keeps ringing with unexpected visits, we discover more about the characters’ history. And we see the ethical tipping points that end up with a farcical but still genuinely tense effort to move Jessica’s body. 

The script, by James Handel and director Matt Winn, is tightly constructed. The surprise visitors that keep showing up prevent it from getting too talky. When they do talk, the characters’ long history, including support for each other in difficult times, gives them exactly the ammunition they need to provoke and push each other. Seeing how quickly they burst through the thin veneer of cozy comity and unleash utter ruthlessness is unsettling but bracing. At first, we lean forward, trying to figure out who will jettison sensible rationality. By the end, though, we are left wondering uncomfortably what our own tipping points might be. 

Every so often, the work of a filmmaker is given a major critical and public reassessment, allowing them to enter the pantheon of great directors.

It happened in the 1950s, when French critics declared that Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Samuel Fuller were not only skillful helmers of genre flicks, but auteurs with distinct personal visions. Later, John Ford was revisited by Peter Bogdanovich and Lindsay Anderson, in books claiming he was more than just a maker of great Westerns. In the 1990s, the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski and the Iranian Abbas Kiarostami, both of whom had been working steadily in their homelands since the 70s, were finally celebrated abroad. More recently, the filmography of Agnès Varda was excavated in retrospectives and festivals, shining a light on a forgotten member of the New Wave.

It’s time the same thing happened for Frederick Wiseman.

First off, let’s not kid ourselves: The 95-year-old Boston native is already considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all, documentary filmmakers. With 46 features in nearly 60 years, he’s widely recognized as the major chronicler of American institutions, as well as a few French ones.

His movies, which have running times ranging from 75 to 358 minutes, have all been self-produced through his company Zipporah Films (named after the director’s late wife), with funding coming from PBS and other public outlets in the U.S. and, more recently, in France. They tend to have banal titles — Basic Training, Meat, Zoo, City Hall and State Legislature, to name a few — which do a clever job masking what they really are: veritable human comedies of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, populated by people from all races, classes and walks of life struggling within systems they never fully control.

Over the last decade or so, Wiseman’s true greatness has been acknowledged on a bigger scale. A New York Times Magazine piece from 2020, titled “What if the Great American Novelist Didn’t Write Novels?”, argued that his output isn’t merely a collection of institutional portraits, but a series of “long, strange and uncompromising” films made by an “artist of extraordinary vision.” A year later, Shawn Glinis and Arlin Golden launched the excellent Wiseman Podcast, celebrating each movie with in-depth analyses and interviews, including one with the man himself. And back in 2010, a MoMA retrospective featured a catalogue in which Wiseman’s work was praised by artists and intellectuals outside the documentary realm.

With career-spanning retrospectives taking place this past year in New York, Los Angeles and Paris, including 33 works restored through the support of Steven Spielberg, a new generation of moviegoers has had the chance to not only discover or rediscover his films in pristine form, but to grasp the profound scope of his ambition.

I’ve personally sat through 20 or so of his movies in Paris since September, presenting a few of them to packed theaters. And with each new screening, I became increasingly attuned to the fact that Wiseman is not simply a great documentary filmmaker, which is a label he’s always rejected. He’s a great filmmaker, period. And to my mind, he’s the greatest American filmmaker living right now (even if he currently resides in France).

His films, which are set in schools, libraries, museums, offices, police precincts, department stores, museums and other public or private places, are not just faceless, factual accounts of bureaucracies and those employed by them. They are carefully structured narratives marked by moments of high drama, dark comedy and raw emotion, all starring real people giving some of the best natural performances you’ll ever see on screen.

To cite some examples: the finale of High School, during which a teacher reads the letter of a former student proudly fighting in Vietnam; the scene in Welfare in which a man compares his humiliating experience to Beckett’s Waiting for Godot; the moment in Missile when two female Air Force trainees give each other high-fives after launching a mock nuclear attack; the epic leg surgery of a thoroughbred horse in Racetrack; the drugged-out hipster in Hospital who has a vomiting fit worthy of The Exorcist; the NATO exercises in Manoeuvre that become surreal war games; the adorable little girl walking with her cane for the first time in Blind; a wolf getting shot point blank in Belfast, Maine; the heartbreaking scene in Public Housing where an elderly man is evicted from his apartment, unaware of where he’ll go next.

Wiseman of course didn’t direct any of these scenes, at least in the traditional sense of calling “action” and “cut.” But he captured them, operating sound while regular cameramen William Brayne and John Davey handled the cinematography, then shaped them afterwards into moments of pure cinema.

For those unfamiliar with his process, his movies are usually shot in stretches lasting from six to ten weeks, then edited by the director for roughly nine months to a year. If editing is what separates cinema from other art forms, offering the ability to mold time and events as one chooses, then Wiseman’s genius lies in the way he’s been able to create layered, emotional works out of all the footage he’s culled together. It’s not quite direct cinema or cinéma vérité — two documentary forms that preceded him — but the transformation of raw material into “reality fictions,” as he calls his films.

I would defy, for instance, any director to recreate the emotional power elicited by two remarkable sequences in the Kansas City-set Law and Order: one in which a hot-headed teenager is restrained by a squad of cops, the other in which a female sex worker is sadistically choked by a detective.

Not only are these scenes harrowing in their brutality, but their depictions of Black citizens being violently subdued by white policemen resonate as much in 2025 as they did back in 1969. Each scene in a Wiseman movie is meant to be grasped on two levels — the literal action on the surface and the more symbolic meaning behind it — and those scenes from Law and Order speak volumes about America both then and now.

Which brings us to what makes Wiseman so important today.

We live in a time of major political and social unrest, when the country appears to be changing in ways never imagined. Wiseman’s movies provide lots of clues as to what got us here, unveiling the deep currents of capitalism, patriotism, religious fundamentalism, racism and classism that have always been present, to varying degrees, in the United States.

Despite their warmth and humanism, his films can sometimes seem scathing or pessimistic — tragic comedies sculpted from the granite of American life. Yet they also reinforce a more heartening truth about the country, which is that no matter how individualistic a society we’ve become over the years, we’re still capable of laboring together for a greater cause.

In that sense, perhaps the quintessential Wiseman scene is one of people sitting around a meeting room, debating an issue until they manage to reach a decision. For the director’s detractors, these can be chunks of pure tedium, indicative of his hands-off, fly-on-the wall approach to cinema.

But at a time when our institutions seem to be in great peril, these scenes now appear to be hammering home a theme Wiseman has been slyly emphasizing all along, from decade to decade and from film to film, in a body of work that’s suddenly become more relevant than ever: the everyday miracle, now under threat, of democracy in action.