Review: Dheeran Adhigaram Onnu

Film: Dheeran Adhigaram Onnu

Director: Vinoth H

Cast: Karthi, Rakul Preeth Singh, Manobala, Sathyan, Bose Venkat, Varghese Mathew, Rohith Pathak, Nara Sreenivas, Surendhar Thakur, Prayas Mann, Kishore Kandam , Jamil Khan and others

Music: Ghibran

Cinematography: Sathyan Sooryan

Editing: T Shivanandeeswaran

Director Vinoth, who impressed audiences and critics alike with his very first film, Sathuranga Vettai, repeats the feat with Dheeran Adhigaram Onnu, to seal his place in the list of directors who have contributed immensely to raising the already high standards of Tamil cinema.

Dheeran Adhigaram Onnu, a brilliant, authentic, investigative thriller that is based on true incidents, leaves you both impressed and moved, all at the same time. It not only makes one want to congratulate the director and his cast and crew but also the Tamil Nadu Police Department and many of its officers, who have been silently doing their duty responsibly and committedly.

The film begins with the police department choosing to digitise its crime records section. As work on this front begins, the file of a solved case catches the attention of a cop who is assigned the task of digitising the case details. That case file is the story of Dheeran Adhigaram Onnu.

The film tells the story of a duty conscious, brave, intelligent Deputy Superintendent of Police, Dheeran Thirumaran,  who is assigned the task of solving an armed robbery case in which the housemates of a house on the outskirts of the city have been brutally bludgeoned to death. As his investigation intensifies, he realises that this is no ordinary crime and soon, he sees a pattern in similar crimes having been committed all across the state.

A deeper probe at various levels soon lets him know that these dacoits have been at work for several years unnoticed by the police and that they have not only been responsible for the deaths of 70 people in the state but for many more across the country. The gang, he understands, has been posing a challenge to the police forces of different states across the country and that all of them, have given up tracking or catching them and bringing them to justice.

His urge to ensure the safety of the common public enables him to crack one of the most difficult cases in Indian crime history. He and his team launch a nationwide hunt to bring to justice a dreaded band of notorious bandits from the north western states of India.

Dheeran Adhigaram Onnu shows in detail the difficulties the team encountered while tracking down the dacoits from the north. It also shows the manner of investigation, which stretches into years and talks about the steely resolve of the Tamil Nadu police, in general, and the team, that brought this dreaded gang to justice, in particular.

The fact that the film is based on true incidents automatically raises the respect one has for the Police force by the time the film comes to an end. In fact, it almost compels you to take pride in the state police’s achievement, especially considering the fact that they accomplished what the police forces of many other states in the country could not.

The film is flawless. Director Vinoth has audiences on the edge of their seats for exactly two hours and 37 minutes, the entire running time of the film. It is more than clear that the director has done extensive research on the topic and on the real incidents based on which he has spun his story.

The amount of information the director has on the subject is evident from the manner in which each scene has been shot.  In fact, there is a scene in the film in which a senior officer is shown training police cadets in the academy. When a dagger is placed before cadets and a cadet is asked how he would pick it up if he were investigating a crime, he promptly takes out his handkerchief and carefully covers the handle of the dagger before picking it up. To this, the senior officer mockingly says, “ You watch a lot of films, don’t you?”  When Dheeran (Karthi) is asked how he would pick it up, he  holds up the weapon with his bare hands but with minimal contact and from a point, which he believes would directly be opposite from the point at which the criminal would have held the weapon. He then clearly explains why cops don’t use handkerchiefs while confiscating weapons found at the scene of crime.

Each and every single department of this film unit has done its work so perfectly that it feels unreal. Be it casting, acting, music, cinematography, editing, direction, art work, or stunts, Vinoth has got them all right.  Each and every individual who has worked on this film deserves to be congratulated.

Karthi just comes up with a mind-blowing performance in this film. The action sequences are explosive, the chase sequences exciting and the romantic sequences, cute, all primarily because of the man’s performance as Dheeran Thirumaran. As a police officer committed to bringing the offenders to justice, he is relentless and in the process, awesome. This is easily Karthi’s finest performance till date.

Rakul Preeth Singh turns into Priya in the film. Cute, vivacious, naughty, innocent and full of love and life, she nails this character. She combines so well with Karthi that audiences have no problems believing that they are looking at a happily married couple.

Bose Venkat as Sathya comes up with yet another impressive performance in this film.  Each and every member of the cast deserves a round of applause.

Ghibran’s music is scintillating at times and romantic at others. Every song of this film works like magic and the background score is simply pulsating for the most part.

Sathyan Sooriyan’s cinematography is exceptional as is Shivanandeeswaran’s editing.

On the whole, this is a film that will invariably make it to the list of Tamil cinema’s finest. Make sure that you don’t miss this one for anything in the world!