Thudakkam

Thudakkam is an engaging watch because Jude Anthany Joseph knows how to package a film with tension, emotion and action to keep the audience invested in it.

Vismaya impresses in Jude's thriller, despite a tonal shift.

Thudakkam is a predictable thriller that offers Vismaya Mohanlal a safe and reasonably effective debut, with her strongest moments coming in the film's action sequences. Despite its predictable premise and familiar storytelling, the film remains safely within the boundaries of a conventional thriller, but within that comfortable and well-worn formula, Vismaya gets a reasonably neat introduction to the big screen.

Vismaya Mohanlal and Aashish Joe Antony impress in a formulaic Thudakkam

Thudakkam gives Vismaya Mohanlal a physically demanding debut where her fighting skills land the punches, even if her acting doesn't. Jude Anthany Joseph's darkest film yet begins as an intriguing missing-person thriller but loses momentum when its women-empowerment themes fall back on clichés and sentimentality.

Vismaya Mohanlal makes a solid debut in the Jude Anthany Joseph directorial, but shoddy writing holds the action drama back from reaching its full potential.

Despite a few sensitive moments and strong supporting performances, Jude Anthany Joseph's film ultimately fails to make a lasting impression.

A middling action-based message movie

Almost all the scenes featuring Mohanlal are that deliberate attempt to celebrate him as a superstar, and despite knowing how it exposes the movie’s genericness, we sort of enjoy that fan service.

Thudakkam falls short because it does not take its character development far enough. A woman-centred film that still cannot quite escape a male imagination of empowerment, Meenu becomes most visibly powerful when she adopts the physical vocabulary traditionally assigned to male action heroes. The film wants to celebrate a woman who refuses victimhood, yet it cannot fully imagine her outside the binary of victim and fighter.

If not for the thoughtful weaving in of Vismaya's martial arts skills, Thudakkam would have ended up as just another generic revenge thriller. She manages to kick it up into average territory.

Vismaya, playing a martial arts practitioner, performs the stunts with commendable agility. The only trouble is that the film clutches at the lowest hanging, most generic solution for women’s safety.