Thandel – An Endearing Love Story with True Events Adding to the Drama continues to appeal to OTT audience writes The Lazy Reviewer
Thandel – a story of two lovers from fishermen community Raju and Satya united for three months in a year and divided for the next 9 months when Raju goes to Gujarat on his fishing expedition – the story of unlimited love, romance, seperation, and longing makes Thandel a beautiful love story at heart with Sai Pallavi and Naga Chaitanya making for an endearing couple.
But, the film is after all named Thandel – the Leader is called thus in this small Srikakulam’s fishermen village. And Raju is the new leader chosen for his exceptional leadership abilities and caring and helpful nature. And, this lends itself to situations that involve action where the heroics of the hero are highlighted. This is in addition to the introduction scene that is an interesting combination of romance and stylish fight sequence.
The film directed by Chandoo Mondeti and produced by Bunny Vas under Geetha Arts banner is written based on a real story of Srikakulam fishermen who get arrested by Pakistan government in 2018. They end up in Karachi jail when coast guard arrests them for entering Pakistan waters and its only after much effort by their women folk and with help from the then external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj that they eventually get released in 2020.
Thandel team took a whole lot of cinematic liberties, to this story – added dollops of patriotic fervour to the drama, and a bunch of scenes lending themselves to action in the jail – on the sea – packaging it with Devi Prasad’s music to appeal to the audiences. Barring a few – especially the much forced hero elevation scenes that could have been done with more finesse – these work in most places making Thandel that had a good run at box office – topping the OTT charts as well.
Decent performances from the lead pair despite Sai Pallavi for once struggling with Srikakulam slang – are a plus for the film. And so are the dances.
The rest of the cast in Thandel includes Prakash Belawadi, Aadukalam Naren, Divya Pillai, Karunakaran and Sundeep Ved.
The film once again proves that a good story with native setting and honesty in recreating it yields good results. In short, Thandel streaming on Netflix makes for a good weekend watch if haven’t already.
