Directed by Tharun Moorthy, Thudarum tells the story of a family victimized by institutionalized corruption. Throughout their ordeal, they realize that the legal justice system often favored only the rich and powerful. Let's discover the obstacles a father had to face to obtain justice for his son and exact revenge on those responsible for this corruption.
Shanmugham, aka Benz, loved his car, a black Ambassador Mark 1, as much as his children and wife. It was a classic car, no doubt, but what made it even more special for Benz was that it had been gifted to him by his boss and mentor, Palani Swamy, a renowned stuntman in regional films. Benz had worked on numerous films as Palani Swamy's assistant and remained as passionate about the world of cinema as ever. After an unfortunate incident, in which his friend, Anbu, lost his life on set, Benz was forced to retire from filmmaking. The syndicate blamed their mentor for the incident, and it could be said that Palani Swamy's entire team was deprived of the means to support themselves and their families. It was then that Benz returned and started driving a taxi.
Director: Tharun Moorthy
Writers: Tharun Moorthy, K.R. Sunil
Stars: Mohanlal, Shobana, Bharathiraja
Some people were fascinated by that classic car, and others told Benz to stop wasting so much money on such outdated machinery. One day, the local police impounded Benz's car, suspecting that a man named Maniyan, who worked at the local auto repair shop, was using it to smuggle marijuana. Benz went to see Inspector Benny C. Kurian, but the arrogant and rude policeman was unwilling to let Benz have his car back, even when he told him that neither he nor his vehicle had anything to do with the crime. Just before the car was impounded, Benz's son, Pavi, and his friends took the ambassador without his permission. They didn't know how to drive properly, and so Benz became very angry with them for their recklessness.
Benz slapped his son in front of his friends, which deeply wounded his ego. Pavi didn't speak to his father for days, and Benz also felt guilty for having laid a hand on him and lost his temper. To top it all off, Benz learned that his son had been missing for a few days and no one had any idea where he had gone. He filed a report at the local police station, and Chief Inspector George Mathan assured him that he would do everything possible to find him. Unlike Inspector Benny, George seemed to be a very helpful and kind person. He was the one who asked Benny not to overthink the matter and to let Benz take the car home. But Benz didn't know at that time in Thudarum that George was literally the most corrupt police officer in the department.
George was an excellent manipulator, but he also knew that what he had done would come to light sooner or later. Just before Benz could get in the car and head home, George asked him for one last favor. The sister of one of the police officers was getting married that day, and George asked Benz to drop him and Benny off at the wedding venue. Benz hesitated, but wasn't given much choice. Even Sudheesh, the bride's brother, accompanied them, and his expression made it abundantly clear that George wasn't revealing the whole truth. George asked Benz to take his car to the forest area, as he and Benny wanted to sit there and drink. Benz became very agitated, and at one point, he told the police officers he wouldn't take them any further. That's when George made up a story to tell Benz and calm himself down.
George said that Sudheesh's father had killed the man and that he was helping him dispose of the body. He told Benz that the blackmailer's body was lying in the trunk of his car and that he just needed to hold on for a few more hours. George made Benz understand that it was all for a good cause and that he had nothing to worry about. But Benz, besides being scared about being an accomplice to the crime, had a strange hunch. He knew something wasn't right. Benz never saw the body, but later, when he parked the car at his house, his dog started barking in front of the trunk.
Benz kept dismissing his fears and convinced himself that it was probably because there was blood in the trunk. But deep down, Benz knew otherwise. Everything became clear when a landslide occurred in the same forest area where George and Benny had buried the body. It was learned that the body they had buried was not that of the blackmailer, as George had claimed, but that of Pavi, the son of Benz and Lalitha. Neither of them was able to process this information. To top it all off, George and Benny decided to blame Benz for everything, unwilling to risk their careers. Besides, George was retiring in the next few days, and he didn't want his reputation tarnished. They knew it was easy to blame everything on an ordinary man who didn't have the resources to defend himself. What they didn't know was that an ordinary man had the power to dismantle an entire system if his family's safety was threatened.
George knew he could blame Benz for everything because he knew details of his past that could help him build his narrative. Pavi wasn't Benz's biological son; he was the son of ANBU and Lalitha. Lalitha married an ANBU, and after her death, Benz decided to marry and support her. Ben knew that society would question him and judge his character, but he was still willing to face anything because he knew Lalitha and Pavi needed him at that moment. Over time, Benz and Lalitha grew fond of each other, and Benz never made Pavi feel like he wasn't his son. He treated both children equally, which is why Pavi respected him deeply.
George told the media that Pavi used to physically abuse Benz's daughter, so Benz killed him in a fit of rage. George threatened Lalitha that if she or Benz tried to go against him, he would tell the world that Lalitha was his lover. Benz knew that George would try to arrest him at any cost, and if that happened, he would never let him out of prison. So, Benz decided to fight back and fight until his last breath. He went and kidnapped Sudheesh, who told him in all sincerity that he knew nothing about the matter. He said that when he sat in Benz's car that night, he also learned there was a dead body in the trunk. Sudheesh truthfully told Benz that George had fabricated the whole story about blackmailing his sister. While George tortured Lalitha and her daughter, Benz went and kidnapped George's daughter, Mary, knowing that was the only way she would listen to him.
At the end of Thudarum, Benz learned that Mary and Pavi had been in love, and George found out. George was literally a monster, and Mary was well aware of what he was capable of. The poor girl kept begging her father not to do anything to Pavi, but George didn't listen. He arrested Pavi and beat him to death. He was such a cruel man that he used Benz's help to dispose of the body. Benz killed Benny and George at the end and took revenge on them. Benny, unlike George, remained somewhat measured in his approach. Although he supported George from the beginning, he knew what they were doing wasn't right. Furthermore, Benny felt some apprehension about what would happen once George retired. He feared for his job, so he tried to stop him several times, but that didn't absolve him of his sins.
Benz turned himself in to the authorities, but the film left us on a cliffhanger where it wasn't clear whether Benny and George's bodies were ever found. It's often assumed that Benz will confess to his crimes and that the law will be lenient, as he acted in self-defense. And yes, his actions were a bit extreme, but he did his best to make the perpetrators pay for what they did. At the end, a reporter asks Benz if he killed his own son. He tells them he didn't murder Pavi, but he was about to say something, but stopped. He was going to say he killed his son's killers, but he didn't explicitly mention it.
So perhaps the director sensed that this implied the truth would come out, or perhaps Benz would never reveal that he killed both police officers. Mary saw Benz kill her father, but I don't think she said anything about it because she knew her father had gotten what he deserved. Also, I think Mary will start living with Lalitha, and that she will accept her as her own daughter. But conspiracy theories aside, the film wanted to draw our attention to the number of honor killings that still occur in our country and how most of them go unreported. People with power take advantage of loopholes in the legal system to get away with it. It doesn't set a good precedent, but sometimes a man has no choice but to take justice into his own hands. Benz hoped justice would be served, but when the entire system failed him, he had to take matters into his own hands.
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