Chandoo Mondeti’s ‘Thandel’, with Naga Chaitanya and Sai Pallavi, can’t decide if it wants to be a sensitive love story or a macho action movie
- Trinity Auditorium
- Feb 5
- 1 min read
The actors are good together, but the screenplay keeps playing spoilsport. What could have been a deeply resonant romance ends up being a shallow test of your patience.The rest of this review contains spoilers.
Thandel is based on the real-life story of fishermen who drifted into Pakistani waters and were detained for a long time until they were released. But the first image of the movie is that of a sad woman on a seat in a railway platform. She is Sathya, and she has just said goodbye to the man she loves, Raju. (Sai Pallavi and Naga Chaitanya play Sathya and Raju). He is a fisherman in this small coastal village in Andhra Pradesh, and their usual goodbyes are when Raju and his fellow-fishermen set out to Gujarat for months at a time to catch fish. But this time, the goodbye is more permanent. At that point in this railway station, Sathya has decided that she cannot wait for Raju for the many months he is gone. And given that it’s the sea, there isn’t even a signal that can facilitate phone contact.
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