In Malayalam,  Urumi’s release preceeded with two trashy superstar movies, August 15 and Christian Brothers. In a sense, time was ripe for Urumi. For the lead actor Prithvi Raj, facing a huge road block in his career, with back to back flops, this should be a welcome relief.  That he had invested in this movie as the producer, speaks volumes about Prithvi Raj’s confidence in this movie. Reviews reveal that the movie is visual treat – expected from a Santosh Sivan movie.

For a moment we have to admire the producers of this movie. They could have made yet another August 15 or China Town or Christian Brothers, but they did not. Instead they came up with an original idea, got a pan-Indian cast, got excellent technicians and finally got Deepak Dev to compose classy music. So for those who claim that Christian Brothers is “entertainment” and that we should feel blessed that our superstars have created another rehash of all their previous movies, this movie shows a different path.
Its a gem among the utter non-sense that is running now in theatres; namely Christian Brother and August 15. A real serious, dead-on-the-money commercial film from the master craftsman – Santhosh Sivan makes the film the best visual treat available now.

Anees KA writes a detailed and innovative review

1. Cinematography – Of course, no one needs reminding that the camera is set in motion by … and he still continues to wonder.
2. Art – Minimal/Simple/Effective/Impressive
3. Lighting – The most awesome and un-appreciated part of this film is lighting or rather the lack of it. This film is an excellent example to other Malayalee directors on how to make use of ambient light.

4. Direction – Commendable improvement from Sivan’s last Malayalam outing – both in terms of story and direction. I see that Mani Ratnam’s closeness is finally producing some positive effect on this guy’s direction. A drooling pace was his trademark so far. With this film, he almost manages to break it.
5. Makeup – On target. I hardly noticed any makeup.
6. Costumes – Always costumes are invariably the worst part of every Malayalam period film. Everybody from the rich to the poor, wear brand new un-soiled clothes. But this time, its taken care of. And I respect the artists involved for their meticulous effort.

Habeeb Arakkal Writes an interesting review:

Sify.com says:

Santosh Sivan’s Urumi is a miniature masterpiece of moods, emotions, anxieties ruled by a thirst for revenge. The film unfolds like a ballad and is a sweet and simple fairy tale. The 170 minutes film works to a large extent to its perfect casting, fantastic performances, soothing score and technical brilliance.

Santosh has made it like how a period drama should be made without too much talk about freedom struggle, no bombastic dialogues or playing to the gallery for heroism. His vision and concept gives this epic the feel of a Brave Heart or Gladiator.

Rediff.com Comments[ a tad detailed than usual]:

Technically, Urumi has the Santosh Sivan stamp all over it; not only angles of shots but even the gait of every actor is peculiarly choreographed so as to give the performer an individual style, sometimes stretched to the extent that we feel that they are striking a pose for a still photograph.

Prithviraj is masculinity personified with an opportunity to show off his bulging biceps throughout. Prabhu Deva’s bony physique (who plays his childhood chum Vavvali) acts as contrast, as is Jagathy Sreekumar’s effeminate villainous Chenichery kurup.

GeneliaD’Souza, as the warrior princess Aysha, impresses.

Nithya Menon as flirtatious and childlike. Paired with Prabhu Deva, she has her moments of glory. Only Vidya Balan’s presence is not justified by the story.

IndiaGlitz waxes eloquent:

The music director of the movie Deepak Dev have succeeded in giving immense richness to the soundtracks with his songs and background scores, set in epic proportions. All of his songs comes up in the right places. The technical crew including editing by Sreekar Prasad and camera department headed by the director and Anjali Shukla, has given the best of the outputs, which are hard to describe in words. So is the case of the art director, the makeup team lead by Renjith Ambadi and costume designer Eka Lakhani who seems to be in the running for the Nation’s best accolades in the coming National awards, for their contributions to this movie..

All in all, ’Urumi’ is a must watch for all those who love quality cinema. Redefining the traditional qualities of period dramas, ‘Urumi’ is sure to become a movie that will be respected and adored by Mollywood for its creative panache, tremendous performances and great technical wizardry.

That said, the movie starts off with the murder of Naxal Varghese (Prithviraj). Constable Ramachandra Pillai was forced by his superiors to shoot the tortured prisoner . Thus within 10 minutes, you know what you need to know that Varghese was a Naxal and he was not killed in an encounter, but intentionally shot dead. So where is the movie heading now?

The movie is a biopic of Ramachandra Pillai, who has a troubled life. His life is a mess. He drinks. He has extra-marital relationships. He is unmoved by the plight of his wife and kids. Now script writer Babu Janardanan after presenting this side, presents the other side as well. He explains why a man who never drank, starts drinking.  Explains the  ‘other woman’ and  nature of  their relation.  But unfortunately, the melodrama of this is wrapped in an Inception like flashback within a flashback making it utterly boring. Even the personality of Ramachadra Pillai is boring. In the entire movie he seems to be a man resigned to his fate, barely raising his finger to change things and accepting everything as it happens. Maybe the real man was like that, but that does not make for good fiction.

It is during his initial posting in Wynad that he meets Naxal Varghese who is played by Prithviraj in an as-wooden-as-you-can get mode. He only has a few scenes with dialogue, but except for a few like the one in the bus with the conductor, everything looks preachy. Now Naxals are supposed to preach ideology, but when your personal conversations with others too appear with similar tone, then it is boring. This does not end when he is alive. Once he is dead, he appears often and preaches.

When you see a well made movie, the director does not stand out. The movie just flows and at the end you get that “wow” feeling. But when you see a Mani Ratnam movie, you can see the director hard at work trying to craft each scene.  You can see that in first time director Madhupal’s work. He tries all sorts of tricks and the one which was a put off was pulling off to a long shot during a conversation scene. There is a scene where the constable and the naxal are talking in a forest. It is a brief line out of the blue without an establishing shot or framing shot to see the characters. But the worst comes towards the last when Pillai goes to meet his dead wife. His brother-in-law (Maniyanpilla Raju) physically assaults him and as the emotional intensity increases, the camera pulls away to show the scenery. This is one scene where you want to frame tightly. Again when Varghese is about to be killed, various 80s style trolley shots are tried. These irritating gimmics take out the emotinal intensity of the scene.

Now contrast it with the movie Social Network which is purely dialogue based. But once the movie starts, you are sitting with rapt attention till the end. In that movie too the script moves between flashback and present, but they all gel very well. At no point in time do you see the director or DOP trying to make a point.

Now the sad part is this. The Naxal movement and the tactics used by the state are an important part of our history. No one can forget what happened to Rajan during Emergency. This story could have been done much better than Thalapavu. Also since Babu Janardanan took an early bail by claiming this is fiction, he could have at least revealed the politicians behind the murder and their justification for this action. He could have shown the side of the state as well. From the way Thalapavu was presented, it resembled a docu-drama.

Coming back to the point about newbie directors, there is a similar movie on Naxals which did not get much attention. Gulmohar by director Jayaraj with super-writer Ranjith playing the title role and it was mostly gripping. You could empathize with the man and his inner troubles. With Ramachandra Pillai, you are just confused.

With another  director and better script, this would have been a better movie.

Very often we have lamented about the sad state of Malayalam Cinema where only superstar movies provide guaranteed return. Why don’t Malayalees encourage youngsters or why don’t we have great scripts like the ones seen two decades back? These are questions we always asked.

Most often we hear the response that the “taste” has changed and film makers are just trying to cater new delicacies that tickle the palette. While that is acceptable, what we would like to see is film makers, who go against the convention. Now if you look for film makers like that there are plenty, but their movies remain in cans and you hear about a few of them when they win awards.

Real success is when you make an off beat film which is accepted by the masses. So it brings great joy to us to see Thirakkatha complete fifty days. The success of this movie is a tribute to Ranjith’s skill as a writer and if he is able produce occasional movies like this in the midst of his Narasimhams it would do good both for the industry and the actors involved.

We know that one swallow does not make a spring, but at least the success of this movie  shows that Malayalees are willing to give good Malayalam movies a chance so long as the movie has something fresh and is well made.

Here’s couple of reviews of this movie:

IndiaGlitz says that the movie is Thirakkatha – refreshingly different

The highlight of the movie is definitely the exquisite script work by the director, telling the plot as monologues of different personalities involved. This juxtaposing of stories between past and present may sound very complex and confusing, but in reality ‘Thirakkatha’ is one of the simplest stories you will ever see. The complexity comes from the depth of the characters, the strength of the script, and the extra investment that every single actor brings to their roles.

The story offers a lot of curiosity about whom on which the movie is based. The makers have placed the late actress Sreevidhya, directors Bharathan and Padmarajan on the posters and presented the movie as a tribute to the late beautiful actress. The movie also shows striking similarity with many actual incidents that happened in the eighties like the film ‘Kazhinja Manjukaalam’ that introduces three stars -of which the villain later turns out to become the superstar. The movie also shows the sets of ‘Rudhiram’ (or is it Roudram?) where the super star even behaves like a police officer even in his own circles, outside the film’s sets.

sify.com says that movie is ‘Quite Good’:

Director Ranjith has gone to tinsel town for his new film Thirakatha. It is about the importance of a script in filmmaking and how it evolves. But what makes this script more interesting is that the main characters are from the show world.

It is his pursuit for a new theme that takes director Akbar Ahmed (Prithviraj) to the tragic affair between Malavika (Priyamani), a yesteryear heroine who has gone into oblivion now, and the evergreen hero Ajayachandran (Anoop Menon).