Balram v/s Tharadas (2006)

Best movie of this year hands down!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

he movie is set into motion when a large cache of arms is discovered in the land belonging to the local businessman Hussein Sahib (Risabava). On investigation, Inspector Varma (Mukesh) finds that Hussein Sahib has no idea about this, but the land was used by someone called Anali Bhaskaran. The Inspector, along with his colleagues Sudhakaran (Jagadeesh) go to arrest Bhaskaran, but they are given a good fight. As the police are being beaten, the screen alternates between a police jeep appearing on the scene and Anali Bhaskaran trying to knife people. Suddenly a hand appears in the scene and beats Bhaskaran. The camera, in a ritual symbolic of us doing pradakshniam around the deity goes around the body to which the hand is attached and reveals the face of Inspector Balram.He is still the same no-nonsense, arrogant person who follows his heterodox ways of investigation. The only difference is that he does not use much four letter words, or in the case of Malayalam, two letter words much. Anali Bhaskaran reveals under interrogation that Hussein Sahib's son Salim is involved in this. Hussein Sahib says that his son left the house sometime back and he has no idea where he is. Then at this point it starts raining characters as if it is the start of monsoon season.In a span of few minutes we get three villains, MLA Rani (Vani Vishwanath), a DGP, Balram's boss (Devan), DYSP George (Siddique), Policewoman Dakshayani (Kalpana), a Chief Minister, a minister called Mustafa, Srini (Srinivasan), the editor of a yellow journal, and a policeman called Ummar (Augustine). While were were figuring out who was who in this, Balram concludes that Tharadas was behind all this and the scene switches to Dubai.If Balram got a Rajnikanth style introduction, then according to the Newton's third law, Tharadas too has to get one. So we see one of his associates insulting a person, bad mouthing Tharadas and walking away. Then in the corridor he sees a faint human figure far away. The camera jerks and jerks and reveals Tharadas, dressed so well that we would think he was on his way to a photo shoot when he decided abruptly to beat a few people. As if this visual was not suffice, there was an electric guitar playing loudly in the background as if someone old the guitar player that he would get paid based on the number of random sounds he could make from the instrument.After beating his associate, Tharadas meets the minister Mustafa (who seems like a Kunjalikutti clone) and does some business. He also wants a favor from the minister. He wants a ring to be passed to his girlfriend Supriya (Katrina Khaif) who is an actress. Once the people and linkages are established, the game is set in motion in an even faster pace. Balram concludes that the only way to trap Tharadas is to arrest Supriya. As expected Tharadas lands in Kerala and takes on Balram and it drives rest of the story.Please read the rest of the review at: http://varnachitram.com/2006/10/26/review-balram-vs-taradas/