Following the unexpected opening of his recent ‘Anwar’, Prithviraj is once again in a role that made and broke the superstars of Mollywood. The heavy dialogue and action based investigative thrillers had always been the creators of big stars, be it in ‘Commissioner’ or ‘Ekalavyan’ or in ‘Avanazhy’ or ‘Irupathaam Noottandu’.

Squeezing up all the elements from these predecessors is B Unnikrishnan s The Thriller , where the hero is placed as the honest upright cop who is ready to set all the things right in his society. Unfortunately, films of this genre have been attempted, recycled and repackaged in various avtaars on our screen before, thereby giving the viewer a been-there-done-that feeling all through. If you are ready to forget the regular clichés and comparisons, then this can really be a ‘Thriller’.

As told above, here we have Prithviraj as Niranjan, a young IPS super-cop, who is daring to the core. As usual with every cop movies, there are the shares of problems to the protagonist from inside and outside the department And when he is assigned the case of the mysterious murder of a scion of 700 crore business empire, Simon Palathingal, he is immersed with every sort of pressures that arise from his bosses and from even the home minister.

Within days of the murder, Niranjan zeroes in on a Dubai based don Martin Dinakar (Sampath) who was the professional rival of the murdered man. Then interspersed are references about IPL cricket team, Hawala, sand mafia , S –shaped knife and allied cases and striking resemblances with all the events of the highway murder case that shocked the state, a couple of months ago.The grand revelation in the climax also comes not much as a surprise for all those who had been regulars with this sort of murder mysteries.

Scriptwriter- Director B Unnikrishnan must be applauded for weaving a reasonably logical story around the actual happenings and for the different styles that he has chosen to present the flick. The machismo in the emerging star is evident in every scene that Prithvi is through.

The movie works at certain levels that may interest every fans of Prithviraj as he doesn’t falter in being in the shoes that propelled Mammootty and Suresh Gopi to superstardom. With that definite charm of the superhero, he seems to have fully enjoyed the proceedings.

Supporting him with equal ease in Tamil star Sampath, who delivers his recent best as Martin Divakar. Infact, it is the performance of both of these actors that catapult the movie through the tough logics with little pitfalls. While Katherine as the heroine suffers due to poor characterisation and less scenes, Siddhique, Vijayraghavan and P Sreekumar do their parts well.

The biggest drawback of the film is that B Unnikrishnan has relied on a genre that holds scant novelty for the present-day audiences. Besides an oft-repeated plot, is that it s too grim and too dark. The story gets into the same old good versus bad mould. Besides, the story has been stretched unnecessarily and the climax, which should ve been a high point, doesn’t rise to the expected mark. In the current scenario, when feel-good entertainers are calling the shots, ‘Thriller’ may appear too dry a subject for families. There re no lighter moments, and a little suggestion of romance and a song doesn’t excite much.

The technical side of the movie is the best from B Unnikrishnan. While Cinematography by Bharani K Dharan is quite mentionable, Manoj and Sreejith have woked overtime to sync the multi cam shots to perfection. Many dialogues are also power-packed and effective. The crew has taken special care to choreograph the action sequences and slow motion activities. The BG scores by Shaanmon are impressive while songs by Dharan are just average.

On the whole, ‘The Thriller’ has its limitations due to its oft-repeated theme. At the box-office, the film may appeal to the die hard fans of the star and lovers of action movies. For others, the stylishly done visuals and takings may impress in parts.