Theerppu

Theerppu is a 2022 Malayalam-language thriller film directed by Rathish Ambat and written by Murali Gopy. The film stars an ensemble cast including Prithviraj Sukumaran, Indrajith Sukumaran, Isha Talwar, Vijay Babu, Saiju Kurup, Hannah Reji Koshy, Suzanne Bernert, Alencier Ley Lopez, Srikant Murali and Siddique. The film is produced by Vijay Babu, Rathish Ambat and Murali Gopi. This film is the second directorial of Rathish Ambat after Kammara Sambhavam.

Theerppu was released theatrically on 25 August 2022 and received negative reviews from critics.

Plot
Four friends: Abdulla Marakkar, Ram Kumar Nair, Kalyan Menon, and Parameshwaran Potti share a traumatic past. Their fathers were friends and were embroiled in a property dispute.

Flashback: Adv. Menon, Kalyan's father, invited Ram's father and Potti's father to get into a deal with a French woman, who was interested in buying a 400-year-old 8-acre property along the shore owned by Sahib Marakkar. The illiterate Sahib is betrayed by his friends and they transfer the property to the French woman, making a lump sum. In turn, the French woman established a hotel there. Unable to digest the fact that his friends betrayed him and the ancestral property lost, Sahib committed suicide, which brought his family to the streets. Abdulla remained traumatized for the rest of his life and decided to avenge his father's death.

Present: The hotel is now being managed by Ram and his wife. Parameshwaran, who incurred huge losses in his business, visits Ram, a prominent businessman in the area. Ram was in the hotel which he built after partnering with the French Chain of luxury hotels. Parameshwaran comes to know that his wife is being too close to Ram and he hates it. He also comes to know about the traumatized Abdulla and opens the way for him to enter the hotel. Abdulla starts playing mind games with Ram. An agitated Ram calls Kalyan, who is now a DIG, to the hotel.

Abdulla makes a move on Ram, who accidentally kills him, hence committing a murder and losing peace once and for all. This was the judgement or theerppu, given by Abdulla.

Cast

 * Prithviraj Sukumaran as Abdulla Marakkar
 * Indrajith Sukumaran as DIG Kalyan Menon IPS
 * Ananthakrishna as young DIG Kalyan Menon IPS
 * Saiju Kurup as Parameshwaran Potti
 * Vijay Babu as Ram Kumar Nair
 * Isha Talwar as Mythili Ram Kumar
 * Hannah Reji Koshy as Prabha Nair
 * Suzanne Bernert as Anastasia Aubert
 * Siddique as Basheer Marakkar, Abdulla's father
 * Sreelakshmi as Beewathu, Abdulla's mother
 * Srikant Murali as Vikraman Nair, Ram Kumar's father
 * Mammukoya as Musaliyar
 * Lukman Avaran as Chandrabhanu
 * Shaju Sreedhar as Menon, Kalyan's father
 * Alencier Ley Lopez as Chandran Pilla aka Pillaji
 * Aswin Kumar as the Commissioner
 * Poojappura Radhakrishnan as the Village Officer
 * Shamim Rayeen as Pavan Putra Bhede
 * Vinod Vaswani as Lakshman Kothadia
 * Mamta Mohandas as Dr. Shwetha (voice over only)
 * Manikandan Pattambi as a police officer (voice over only)

Theatrical
The film released on theatres on 25 August 2022.

Home Media
The digital rights of the film is acquired by Disney+ Hotstar and started streaming from 30 September 2022.

Reception
Anna M. M. Vetticad of Firstpost rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars. She heavily criticised how politically cautious it was and stated, “Prithviraj and Indrajith Sukumaran’s naturally arresting personalities cannot compensate for Theerppu’s ridiculously facile politics.” Manoj Kumar R of The Indian Express gave the movie 2/5 rating and commented that "the film seemingly has no inkling of how absolute power works". Lakshmi Priya of The News Minute rated the film with 2.5/5 stars, stating "the film can be read as a commentary on revisionist history and political appropriation with a lot to offer ‘between’ the lines, but the lines themselves have little solid to offer". S.R.Praveen of The Hindu said "Theerppu comes perilously close to living up to that joke that some films are made quickly within the limited space of a room or a resort, and having no content worth speaking about". V Vinod Nair of The Times of India stated "the movie fails to make the impact we expect, with the first half is just about watchable and the second half lags too much", but rated the film with 3/5 stars. A reviewer of Onmanorama called it "a serious drama trivialised by confused mix of theatrics".