Kasada Thapara Movie Review Rating:3/5
Production: Black Ticket Company, R.Ravindran, Trident Arts, V. Rajalakshmi Cast: Aravind Akash, Harish Kalyan, Premgi, Priya Bhavani Shankar, Regina Cassandra, Shanthanu Bhagyaraj, Sundeep Kishan, Venkat Prabhu, Vijayalakshmi Direction: Chimbudeven Story: Chimbudeven
Kasada Thapara, in a voiceover, director Chimbudeven gives us what the film is all about — a demonstration of two theories: the butterfly effect and the vantage point theory. The film involves six stories that are interlinked and each one has an overriding theme. Some characters who are principal characters in one story appear as outliers in another even as their actions influence the lives of people whom they hardly come in contact with.
A forgotten file doesn’t just lead to a romance between the woman (Regina Cassandra) who has left it at the office she had gone to for an interview and the man (Premgi Amaren) who returns it to her, but also becomes the proof that could save a life. An well-meaning act by a young man (Prithvi Pandiarajan) towards a distraught woman (Vijayalakshmi) doesn’t just result in taking many lives but also in sending an innocent man (Venkat Prabhu) to the gallows. The decision of a gangster (Sampath) to turn over a new leaf ends up ruining the marital life of a cop (Sundeep Kishan), who, in turn, gets to learn the truth about his sister (Vidya Pradeep) when a misplaced mobile phone is returned to him by an ambitious young man (Harish Kalyan), who has a change of heart when he realises that his act of sharing a cool drink might have put the lives of several kids in danger.
Kasada Thapara keeps us engaged thanks to the interconnectedness of its multiple storylines, as we are constantly surprised by how an character or their actions in one story shapes the lives of those in another segment. Chimbudeven has roped in a different cinematographer, editor and composer for each of these stories and this approach makes each of the segments stand out. The technical work in some of these are somewhat superior to what we see in the rest and even elevate that particular segment. Take the case of the final episode, Akkara (Care). The cinematographer-composer combo of Vijay Milton and Santhosh Narayanan enhance the emotions in the moving story and make us feel the misfortune of its protagonist (Venkat Prabhu, who is quite good in a role that had the potential to become melodramatic). But this is also a drawback in some instances, like in Panthayam (Betting). The director also uses a different aspect ratio for a few films, which seems to have been done just to make the stories stand out visually.the film doesn’t fall flat and there is some substance still left and it’s too early to give up on the film. The final story having Venkat Prabhu in the lead role suffers from screenplay issues and the premise could have been explored better. Despite Venkat Prabhu’s solid acting, the melodrama is a bit high, and this affects the engagement.
Among other performances, Vijayalakshmi, and Sundeep Kishen stand out and sell their roles well. The former looks natural while Sundeep’s effort is visible and has translated well on screen. The film is technically strong generally, but in the music department, Santhosh Narayanan’s score and voice drowns you in pathos. The cinematography of Rajasekhar, Vijay Milton and SR Kathir impresses the most.the director manages to make us care for a few of the characters that we stay invested in the proceedings even when they feel generic.
