Mammootty - Rajinikanth starrer ‘Thalapathi’ is one of the classic films of all time, here are the reasons why

‘Thalapathi’, the Tamil film written and directed by the master craftsman Mani Ratnam is one of the films that brought the genre of gangster-drama films to a new level through its unique storytelling pattern and by basing characters from the Hindu epic, Mahabharata. Although Mammootty has only done a handful of films in the Tamil language, this single film itself is enough to show how magnificent he is at portraying characters on the screen. In ‘Thalapathi’, the audience got to see a very realistic ‘Mass’ appeal of actor Rajinikanth and stands high in terms of the best iconic roles that he has played in his entire film career. Here let’s look at some of the reasons why this Mammootty-Rajinikanth starrer film ‘Thalapathi’ is unique from other gangster genre films and why it’s one of the classics of all time.

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In the film, ‘Thalapathi’ Mammootty played the character named Devaraj and Rajinikanth played the role of Surya. The plot of the film was actually based on the friendship between the characters in the Hindu epic, ‘Mahabharata’ that is, Karna and Duryodhana. When the two titans in the film industry, Mammootty and Rajinikanth combined to play a role in the film ‘Thalapathi’, it could be said that the audience was not quite ready to witness the magnificent performance of the two.

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The cinematography for ‘Thalapathi’ which was done by Santhosh Sivan was not limited to just beautiful visuals. It was the use of meaningful shots and perfect composition that made the cinematography in ‘Thalapathi’ astounding and near perfect. The use of visual language is evident in almost each and every frame in the movie and achieving such kind of perfection is not that easy unless it’s the legend Santhosh Sivan behind the camera.

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The main plot of the movie is something that you have seen before in almost all of the other gangster drama movies, but what made ‘Thalapathi’ stand out from the others was only because of Mani Ratnam’s idea of giving each and every character and storylines an epic touch by basing it from the Hindu epic ‘Mahabharata’. Also, Mani Ratnam tells the whole story from the point of view of ‘Karna’, the character played by Rajinikanth. Duryodhana is shown as the story’s villain and Karna is the one who humanizes him. The character Subbulakshmi which was played by the actress Shobana was based on the character Draupadi and Actor Arvind’s character Arjun was based on Arjuna. Any student who wishes to study storytelling must add this to their watchlist as this is one perfect way on how to tell and usual story in a very unusual and unique way.

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Actor Mammootty actually rejected the role of Devaraj in the film as he was not at all satisfied with the narration of the story by Mani Ratnam and also he was busy with the shoot for ‘Kuttettan’, directed by Joshiy. It was only due to director Joshiy’s pressure that Mammootty accepted to do the role and also Mammootty suggested actor ‘Jayaram’ to do the role of Arjun, Surya’s brother in the film but as Jayaram was busy with shoots, he declined the role. Jayaram later played the role of Mammootty’s brother in the film ‘Dhruvam’ which was directed by Joshiy and was released in the year 1993.

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The composition of the film’s score and the soundtrack was done by Ilayaraaja and the lyrics were written by the poet Vaali who has also written lyrics for the song ‘Oru Murai’ in the Malayalam film ‘Manichitrathazhu’. The songs ‘Kaattukuyilu Manasukkulae’, ‘Sundari Kannal’ ‘Chinna Thayaval’ ‘Rakkamma kaiye Thattu’ are all nothing short of pure perfection and iconic. The songs in the film were sung by legendary singers K.J Yesudas, S.P Balasubrahmanyam, S.Janaki etc. Also, it was said that Ilayaraaja composed the entire soundtrack in ‘Half a day ‘. The film was also said to have revolutionized the audio market business of South Indian films.

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