Thalapathi

A fight between two brothers (Rajnikanth and Arvindswamy) is a classy version on Modern Mahabbaratha, is truly unique. Maniratnam has adapted the screenplay to the modern version and it's really awesome. Mammootty as Rajnikanth's friend Deva is amazing. Music and cinematography by Illayaraja and Santosh Sivan (The terrorist) commend each other. For me it's the best gangster movie made in India. Just loved the movie from beginning till end.

Modern friendship of karna & Duryodhana . Good movie, music & cinematography is excellent

Plot : A fourteen-year-old Kalyani gives birth to a boy alone and, fearing societal backlash and incapacity, abandons him inside a moving goods train. A slum dweller finds the baby, takes him home, names him Surya and raises him. Surya grows up to be intolerant of injustice, especially to the poor, and wonders why his biological mother abandoned him. The only item from his mother is the yellow shawl in which she had placed him. Devaraj, a powerful gangster, who is kind but feared by most, fights injustice with violence. Surya attacks and kills Ramana, an auxiliary of Devaraj. Surya is arrested for murder and faces brutal torture from police, but Devaraj bails him out after perceiving Ramana's felony and realises Surya's cause was genuine. Surya and Devaraj, who share an ideology, come to understand each other. Devaraj declares Surya as his Thalapathi (commander) and best friend.

For this movie, 10 out of 10 is probably too low. That's how good this movie is. Among Tamil cinema's timeless classics, it came in the late 80's and now its 2010 but still I watch it with the same enthusiasm and clap/whistle at some of the dialogues from this film. Maniratnam had a hard time directing Rajnikanth and Mammootty but if he can give a product like this through such hardships, I pray he goes through such hardships again (Sorry Mani Sir!). Ilayaraja is the life and soul of this film. Rajni's best ever performance along with Mammooty. There were the few Nayagan inspirations (Doing good for 4 people cannot be wrong, the inspector beating the hero and then the inspector getting killed by the same hero, etc). Who else can take the Karna-Duryodhana friendship from the Mahabharatha and weave such a magical story in accordance to today's times? Mani is magic!

Thalapathi (1991) : Brief Review -

The Most Emotionally blended Family Friendly Crime Drama of 90s. One of the most popular genre in Hollywood Crime Drama didn't get much exploration in Indian Cinema till 80s. Then several crime dramas in masala genre gave hope but ultimately weakened the support of family audience. In early 90s Mani Ratnam brought Thalapathi set in crime world but differently i mean it's affectionate. It's all for people not for just for personal benefits of gangsters so it was meant to create more attraction to the family audience. At the end it becomes a Family drama yet not done with it's crime World to fulfill the hunger of watching a perfect Blockbuster. This was first and may be last time in Indian Cinema that a crime film became an emotional family drama and is likely to remain the one of it's own kind. Rajnikant and Mammootty's brotherhood mania is terrific. Both of them were really acting and not just entertaining and then another great actor Arvind Swamy was joined in a supporting role. Even the female side is filled with rich quality performances of Shobhana, Srividya and Bhanupriya. Overall, the acting department of Thalapathi is far better than any other crime drama i have seen till date. Mani Ratnam is a genius, he knows how to connect a negative film with audience positively and so he makes those negative characters more positive than born positive characters in the film. Many people consider this film as reference to Mahabharata characters which is not totally acceptable. The film is very well set in it's own crime Universe then I don't think there is any need to link it with an epic. Thalapathi should remain the only crime film having emotional intelligence and Blockbuster Family Drama elements for some time more.

RATING - 8/10*

By - #samthebestest

This film is about 15 years old. i watched it quite a few times and it never fails to impress me. As said earlier it is a modern version of the Mahabharata, with Rajni as Karna.

Its starts with a 14 year old mother forced to abandon her son and the son grows up in the city slums far away..he befriends a underworld don and swears loyalty to death for him Meanwhile the mother gets married and has a son who becomes a top government official. Nobody knows of her earlier son except for her husband. Thing come to head as her younger son is posted to where the elder(who the mother doesn't know is her son) is dominating.

Watch the movie to see what happens. The mother-son scenes are amazingly touching