Dhuruvangal Pathinaaru aka D16 (2016) Review!!!

Synopsis – Deepak retires after an accident cuts off his right leg. Five years down the line, he is forced to revisit all the events leading to the accident.

My Take – Every now and then you come across a film which you watch with literally no expectations, but somehow the film’s Excellencies suave you into gasping for more, and believe it or not, this Tamil language thriller is one of those. I must admit I am not a part of the avid audience who plugs into films coming out of Kollywood regularly, but I do end up watching some films like Kabali, Iru Mugan, the horrid Kaashmora or the recently released Bogan, purely out of curiosity for fresh stories, despite the severe language barrier. The only reason I decided to check this one out, other than its sleek trailer, was to enjoy the presence of Dubai based up & coming star Ashwin Kumar, who plays a supporting role in the film, with whom I had the honor to work with back in 2015. Talking about the film, and trust me when I say this, if you are a crime film lover, right from the opening credits of this thriller, you will be completely hooked in & remain in awe till the end credits roll. Marking his directorial debut, twenty one year old Karthick Naren, here with his clever & unique style & flow reminds us once again that a film from India, devoid any songs or romantic angle or a larger than live male lead, can still be good with a king sized exceptional script. Without any distractions from the main plot, the whodunit thriller stays crystal clear on target of providing a complicated yet thoroughly engaging story.

The story follows former ACP Deepak (Rahman), who five years into his forced retirement is now well settled in Ooty. Upon request from a former colleague, he agrees to have a sit down with his son, Gautham, to talk him out of joining the police force citing the dangers bestowed during the service. However when Gautham (Ashwin Kumar) arrives, he wants to talk only about Deepak’s final case which remains unsolved, the same case which made Deepak lose his left leg & his batch. Surprised & curious about the information Gautham carries, Deepak is forced to revisit all the events leading to the accident. A case of a person missing under total chaos, a bizarre death, an accident that shatters all perspective, all these happening within a radius of 1 km, that’s all we are shown. But that’s enough to keep us pondering on the endless, mind-bending questions, the circumstances resonate. What are we dealing with here? Thus begins a narrative pattern induced in layers of suspenseful moments & completely knitted with twists and turns, and revealing any other scene from the film could seriously affect the film watching experience. You can say a lot about the sensibilities of a filmmaker by looking at the cool fonts he uses, but there’s more than just surface aesthetics. There’s always something happening in the background – someone unloading a truck, someone looping a garden hose, apparently, life goes on even as the investigation goes on. The film opens to the sounds of a steady patter, with the mystery film usuals like a car, an apartment, a killer, and a couple all set against a dark backdrop of rain that just won’t cease. There are new characters in the latest version of the past and the scene of crime is revisited quite a number of times through the film – in the guise of different theories, even though I can never look past the mad sheet of rain, and a blurry tangle of limbs and it does get a little overwhelming at a point, but who cares when the screenplay is so swift! Right? Sure one hour into the film it kind of gets difficult to tell apart the unknown faces, which might be considered as an occasional misstep, or in hindsight, I do think a couple of things that could have been staged or shaped better, but beyond all that, it is easily evident that Karthick Naren has a vision & is just waiting till the end to pull out the sense of wonder out of the audience. There are also those moments in the film that quite make something out of nothing, for example when Rahman’s character casually & suddenly decides to go home. He meets an old neighbor who tells him that a man had been lurking outside his apartment for a long time. He walks inside his apartment, grabs something from the fridge, and finally settles with a cup of noodles – while the audience is on edge, waiting for something to happen.

A loud something that could shatter the deafening silence, for it’s definitely too abnormally normal, and those crafty switches between long shots and close-ups don’t help either. But the loud moment that the director braces the audience for, just never comes, which I am in complete support of & might even consider it a lovely bit of filmmaking. A snatch of personal space, colorful apparatus, muted background score, an expectant hush – and absolutely nothing, this is something the Indian audience has never been prepared for. As I mentioned before, this film is a clear example of how mainstream film-making myths can be overcome when the script & the talent backing the film is right. I am glad nothing comes in between this partly cynical and partly existential jigsaw puzzle that director Karthick is leading us to assemble, no comic one-liner, no atmospheric songs, no excuses for a romantic back-story, no fancy camera angles, no arm-twisting manipulative music, which instead complements the film’s texture. The best part is, even the casual viewer can’t miss how organically the puzzle solves, each piece leading into a nail-biting search for another. There is an unmistakable flow, in the way characters are introduced, interestingly fleshed out and yet kept sufficiently in the dark, for us to keep guessing their motives. At least, a part of this magic is because of the film-maker’s superb subverting of the ‘expected’. We get a brilliantly written new cop recruit (Prakash Vijayaraghavan) who, instead of the lead, takes over the part of the ‘gut hunches’. We get a sincere constable who, over the years, has made peace with the way the system works. The beauty of this film is that you can easily relate it to the crimes happening around, as in a way it is happening. You can see each and every character resembling a guy next door and the people we see in the reality. Every character has contributed something to the plot. There’s something of note in every scene, a chain of events that you’d miss if you blink – and there’s the mystery itself. And as the icing on the cake, we get the frighteningly real middle-aged inspector protagonist, portrayed excellently by Rahman (I am so going to check out more of his films) with loads of maturity and restraint. All leading up to an end, we would have never thought of, something director Karthick Naren (who also wrote this film) so smartly slipped on to our eyes. The length of the film is another plus, at an hour-and-forty-five-minutes (105 minutes) run time, it is as brief as it is rapid. Sujith Sarang’s cinematography is perfect and captures the mood of the film, so is Sreejith Sarang’s editing which is Hollywood style slick. For any mystery film, music can only help in elevating the mood of the scene and intensity of the story and kudos to Jakes Bejoy for crafting it. Among performances, Rahman clearly justifies his role and subtly underplays his part. Also marking his foray into Tamil films, Ashwin Kumar is excellent. While he may not be presented with enough screen time to show case his yet unexplored talents, his sequence in the final act of the film marks as a reason why he is surely a talent to watch out for. Among other actors, Prakash Vijayaraghavan, Santhosh Krishna, Anjana Jayaprakash, Vinod Varma & Delhi Ganesh stand out. On the whole, ‘Dhuruvangal Pathinaaru’ aka ‘D16’ is an excellent, bold, brilliantly structured, engaging thriller & without a doubt, a clear contender for being one of the best Tamil films ever released.