'Thippara Meesam' review: Where's the story in this jungle of cliches?

It is probably true that no one sets out to make a bad movie. There is money involved. There are actors like Sri Vishnu involved, displaying all the honesty and sincerity that an aspiring star has before he loses it all after making it big. And then, there is the need to squeeze the resources to the best use they can be put to. All of that reflects in Krishna Vijay's Thippara Meesam, the effort that a bunch of not so well-known members of the film fraternity have put in their cinema.

But, what's missing is the soul. You can jump up a hundred times to reach a fruit hanging high from a tree, but if you don't have the necessary skills or tools, your hard work doesn't yield much.

Same goes here. There's no story, just a random screenplay where scenes appear to have been added because well, the audience has two and a half hours to kill. Thippara Meesam is an inane collage of cliches stitched together, each new cliche added as an afterthought. There is the dark child with abandonment issues that distance him from his mom. And does anyone do romance worse than Telugu movies, I wonder at times. There is a wannabe cool game. A bunch of junkies bet big on a task that'll not even make the cut in a dilapidated episode of Roadies - there is a cash bag in a random car parked in a random street. Go find it! Most genius junkie task ever.

Sri Vishnu plays a DJ who gets on the wrong side of a bookie and in order to arrange for the massive sum of money, he forges a cheque and then fights a case against his mom for giving him a cheque that bounced. It's funny, this context, because you don't just use an eraser to change Rs 5 lakhs to 40 lakhs on a cheque and then send a legal notice against the person who gave you the cheque. To make it better, the bank guys actually call his mom to tell her that her cheque has bounced (would they have handed over the cash to the forger if there was that much money in the account - a question that tormented me all through. Is the banking system really functioning like that?)

Anyway, there is also the justification of the totally spoilt son with enough morality to make sacrifices for the same family, because one truth changes everything for the most depraved of human beings. There is the dirty cop, there are goons, and a flashback-style narrative that is not really required. Every sub-plot in the movie feels like squeezing out a few blobs of toothpaste from a tube that has nothing. And the female protagonist in the movie (Nikki Tambola) is as relevant as the model on the toothpaste tube. There's no purpose. None. Naveen Neni is the protagonist's friend, and once again, has nothing to do. But, he is probably just thankful that they didn't use him for the usual crass, homophobic jokes.

Thippara Meesam's story has got nothing to do with the title either. I don't know what symbolism is still conveyed through the moustache because that old sense of macho wrongly attributed to facial hair really doesn't evoke much in the urban audiences anymore. And surely, this movie was not made for those parts of the country where the moustache is a symbol of male pride.

It tries so hard to be a transformation story, but the problem with a lot of Telugu transformation stories (Valmiki comes to mind) is that we glamorize the bad boy image so much, the transformation doesn't really hold any meaning. Thippara Meesam's protagonist is stuck midway - he is neither the deplorable Arjun Reddy - he tries hard mind you - nor is he the dark frustrated son beyond redemption who changes one fine day. And Rohini as the mother just looks sad, all the way. Even I would, if I had to play a mother whose biggest argument against her son cannot be revealed because the climax suspense relies on it - and that's a cliche too.

The cinematography, while decent, is cliched too, the typical low-budget wacky look - bulbs, randomly painted old car, bylanes, flickers, drug-deluded shots, intoxication effects. The OST is fine too, but wasted in a movie where things just happen randomly. Same goes for the music, because what exactly is it supposed to convey anyway when the scenes are so absurd?

All in all, Krishna Vijay's movie is mostly balderdash, where not enough happens for us to even allege that it doesn't make sense. It is just one cliche after another.

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the series/film. TNM Editorial is independent of any business relationship the organisation may have with producers or any other members of its cast or crew.