Thambi ’s plot hinges on the classic case of identity theft, parts of which reminded of another movie ( The Return of Martin Guerre ) I watched a few years back. There too, a man returns to his family after several years, where the director toys with the idea of the real identity of the man in question — is he’s an impostor or the actual person? But that movie was far more serious in the way it dealt with deception. In Thambi , Jeethu Joseph spells out every little detail in the first hour or so. You have Saravanan who deserted his family when he was a teenager. It’s been 15 years since he stormed out of the house. Is he dead or alive? You don’t know.
But you are aware there’s a family that’s optimistic about his return, a sister Parvathy (Jyothika) who’s longing to see her brother’s face. A girlfriend who visited his house on the day Saravanan ran away. And you have conman Vicky (Karthi, in yet another convincing performance), who does petty crimes to make ends meet in Goa. Vicky is unreliable as a person and has mastered the art of deceiving people with his antics — sometimes with his charms. Karthi in these portions reminds you of Rocket Raja, his character from Siruthai . When an opportunity presents itself, Vicky hopes to stage the biggest con of his life: to pretend to be Saravanan for monetary gains. He’s entirely convinced of robbing a family of its sanity. So, when there’s a mirror shot of Vicky’s inner soul questioning his moral compass, we have him saying this: “Innuortharoda emotion nambaluku information.”
The story now harks back to Mettupalayam, where Saravanan (Karthi) returns to his hometown. We know he’s fake, but the family doesn’t. There’s a variation in Karthi’s performance when he channels his inner Saravanan; he speaks gently and has the patience to listen. He collects even the tiniest bit of information about the real Saravanan. Everyone in the family, be it his father (Sathyaraj, with a fine blend of sarcasm and realism) or mother (Seetha), is delighted about Saravanan’s arrival, but not his sister. She’s still angry with him. For, she was like a mother to him. Which is why it isn’t surprising that their character names are Parvathy and Saravanan. If you consider the brother-sister angle, the plot is a nod to Rajinikanth’s Ranga, where the superstar played KR Vijaya’s brother. It is hard to buy Karthi and Jyothika as siblings, for every time he calls her “akka” you think he probably meant “anni”. But there’s warmth in their scenes together.
Nobody smells a foul play except the grandmother (Sowcar Janaki who acts with her eyes). She knows her grandson. She is aware thatVicky is a fraud. She tries to communicate this to others. Jeethu Joseph cooks up a solid casting in Thambi , making it engaging for the most part. The generic first half — which has Saravanan trying to adjust in the family — ends with a cliffhanger, involving the person who played Katappa in Baahubali series. You soon realise that Thambi , the title, is a ploy and the movie is about the larger family — the conceit, in fact, is reminiscent of the family from Drishyam . Which one would leave out a spoiler...
There are too many issues that muddle the second half, with a trademark Jeethu Joseph twist that you sense from two kilometre radius. Of course, this is the man who convinced the world that Suyamblingam was in Tenkasi on August 2, in Papanasam (the remake of Drishyam ).
Early on, we see Parvathy telling a short story to a group of kids who cannot afford formal education. It is about a man who tried to disrupt the honeycomb structure and the eventual price he paid for that. The moral of the story is: unity — if you recount the surprising turn of events in the last act, you will come to a conclusion that Thambi wasn’t bad after all.
