Thimmarusu Movie Review: A murder mystery in which coincidences are too convenient

Title: Thimmarusu 

Cast: Satyadev, Priyanka Jawalkar and others

Director: Sharan Koppisetty 

Rating: 2.5/5

Somewhere in 'Thimmarusu', which is an official remake of the 2019 Kannada-language film 'Birbal', Lawyer Ramachandra (Satyadev Kancharana) says that there are no coincidences in crimes. Well, in resolving the murder mystery that is at its core, the film relies on too many coincidences - plot points that are too lazy and convenient. The characters around the male lead utter exactly the words he wants them to. And he figures out clues in no time. 

In 2011, on the night Team India won the ICC World Cup match, a cabbie-cum-police informer was murdered on a desolate road. A waiter was framed by a bad cop, resulting in his imprisonment. In 2019, Ramachandra decides to reopen the case and ensure that the wrongfully incarcerated victim gets justice. Once he embarks on the mission whose path is full of thorns, he has to double up as an investigator. 

Writer-director Sharan Kopisetty, who borrows the material from the Sandalwood original, wants the audience to be convinced that his heroic, upright, and conscientious lawyer is hyper-intelligent. In the process, he lets the screenplay do too much exposition in the second half. 

What does it take for a lawyer to understand that call records can be an effective source of tracing further evidence in a murder case? In this film, it takes his girlfriend (Priyanka Jawalkar in a somewhat dull role) to struggle to catch the mobile network while eating street food. It's how our hero accidentally discovers that some things can be learned by mining call records. It takes a scrap seller for him to think of reading a day's newspaper from 2011. One wonders what would have been his client's fate had it not been for such silly coincidences.

Crime thrillers can tire you out if too much of the police procedural (in this case, the procedural plays out like a proxy) is hinged on cracking highly complicated clues through improbable discoveries. The intensity, at least, should have been intact. After a gripping interval block that suggests that the plot is going to deepen further, we see the hero's girlfriend decking herself up and seeking her boyfriend's feedback. "You are beautiful," he says as if the audience has been sorely missing to watch Satyadev's romantic side. 

For a supposedly intelligent lawyer, Ramachandra assumes that the court is going to listen to his explanation that the accused speaking to his mother on the phone just seconds before the crime somehow proves his innocence. 

After a film like 'Uma Maheshwara Ugra Roopasya', Satyadev plays an intrepid character who says that his gut in the punch can have a 'resounding' effect on the villain's life. Yes, such lines are important in a commercial film. But in the context of a murder mystery, somehow it all looks forced. 

Sricharan Pakala's background music is engaging, while the cinematography is decent. The production values are respectable for the most part. Brahmaji's comedy is surprisingly good. With better writing, 'Thimmarusu' would have been a winner. 

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