Director: Tamizh

Cast: Vikram Prabhu, Lal, MS Bhaskar

Streaming on: Hotstar

Taanakkaran caught my eye with its premise. Cop stories are a dime a dozen in Tamil cinema. Most of these movies follow time tested templates and rely on inventive writing to make them stand out. Taanakkaran however breaks away from these templates and is centered around events at a police training academy. You can also call this a ‘period’ film of sorts as it is set in 1999 (it is supposedly inspired by true events).

The protagonist is Arivu (Vikram Prabhu), one of the brightest candidates at the training academy. A born leader, he has his sights set on donning the khaki uniform and fulfilling a promise he made to his late father. Arivu is also outspoken and tenacious, traits that don’t augur well with the hostile environment at the academy.

One of the reasons for the creation of such an oppressive environment at the academy is Eeswara Moorthy (Lal), a senior trainer. Moorthy is feared by the cadets for his inhuman training methods (think of the Fletcher character from Whiplash). An early disagreement on the number of toilets allotted to the candidates sparks tensions between Moorthy and Arivu. Arivu often seems to step out of line by escalating complaints to Moorthy’s superiors. This however backfires as the senior officials at the academy turn out to be either corrupt or biased towards Moorthy’s methods.

There are other sub plots woven into the narrative too. Arivu’s batch includes candidates who are elderly and are attending police training belatedly due to legal wrangles. These candidates are ostracized and given a hard time by trainers and most other cadets. The screenplay takes an interesting turn when these elderly candidates are placed in the same training group as Arivu, with a view to having all of them ousted together. This sets up a nice underdog story as the film nears its climax, where there would be a final parade contest. Arivu’s group swear to put up a fight and topple the tyrant Eeswara Moorthy.

There are films where the writing is by the rule book, but doesn’t really evoke a deep emotional connect. Soorarai Pottru I thought fell into this category. There are also films like Taanakkaran, where the writing is far from perfect, but manages to glue the audience in. This is achieved through a combination of factors. The key one here was the casting. Vikram Prabhu is majestic in his portrayal of Arivu. His demeanor exudes confidence and its clear he has put in the homework to get the parade sequences right. Lal is terrific as Eeswara Moorthy and has magnificent screen presence throughout. The support cast comprising MS Bhaskar, ‘Bose’ Venkat and Livingstone also put in memorable performances. The screenplay is slick. Madhesh Manickam’s cinematography, especially during the parade sequences in the climax, is impressive. Ghibran’s score sets the right tempo and keeps the film ticking.

There could have been a tad more inventiveness in the writing. Many of the sequences, though well shot, were quite predictable. I thought the film was also too long. A good 15-20 minutes could have been cut down to make the end product compact. Though it has these flaws, Taanakkaran ticks many boxes. Its raw, grassroots level portrayal of how the police force works is a shift from the glamorous portrayal in most other films. In some ways, to borrow a frequently used training phrase from the film itself, Taanakkaran does an ‘about turn’ on the cop genre as we know it.

Overall rating: 3/5