Tha - Give, forgive

Perhaps inspired by the success of Sasikumar, Samuthirakani, Pandiraj and Sarkunam likes, a bevy of filmmakers are entering Kollywood with realistic stories set in rural milieu. R K Surya Prabhakar is one more in the list.

In ‘Tha’, the director who once assisted Samuthirakani has presented the tale of a group of friends with the main focus on the role played by debutant Sri Hari.

And it’s not just Sri Hari the fresher, but everyone from the producer to the heroine to the music composer.

Surya (Sri Hari) is a good-hearted tough guy who spends time with his set of friends at a village near Coimbatore.

He hates love till he gets a piece of advice from the sister of his friend, for assaulting her boyfriend.

This incident changes Surya’s attitude towards women and his parents start the bride hunting. They finalise Jothi (Nisha), a family friend’s daughter.

Both slowly start loving each other and everything goes well till Surya develops suspicion on Jothi for silly reasons. When he realises that the fault is on his part, everyone is ready to forgive him. But he decides otherwise. And what follows is an unexpected climax.

Sri Hari as Surya are apt in the roles of a rustic youth. Though Nisha is beautiful, she looks little alien to the character she has played.

New guys (Benito, Madhan, Shanmugam, Vettrivel and Govindan) as Sr Hari’s friends are apt. Subramani and Vasanthi, who play the protagonist’s parents, make the film work better.

Music by Sri Vijay reminds Ilayaraja. V S Devaraj’s camera work is good. With linear narrative in flashback, the film has some patience-testing scenes and abruptly-ending sequences. But you can’t avoid the feeling of having read a good short story while coming out of the theatre