Theerppu

For the 1982 Indian Tamil language film, directed by R. Krishnamoorthy, see Theerpu.

Theerppu (transl. Judgment) 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
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Rathish Ambat
Written by	Murali Gopy
Produced by	Vijay Babu Rathish Ambat Murali Gopy
Starring	Prithviraj Sukumaran Indrajith Sukumaran Isha Talwar Vijay Babu Saiju Kurup Hannah Reji Koshy
Cinematography	Sunil K. S.
Edited by	Deepu S. Joseph
Music by	Murali Gopy (songs) Gopi Sundar (score)
Production companies	Friday Film House Celluloid Maarg
Distributed by	Friday Film House
Release date	25 August 2022 (2022-08-25)
Country	India
Language	Malayalam

Theerppu was released theatrically on 25 August 2022 and received negative reviews from critics. The film was a box office bomb.

Plot

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

1993: 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. Abdullah 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 Mythili. Parameshwaran, who incurred huge losses in his business, visits Ram, now the prominent businessman in the area. Ram is still that arrogant, selfish and womanizing person, who maintains a tough relationship with his wife Mythili. was in the hotel which he built after partnering with the French Chain of luxury hotels. Parameshwaran discovers that his wife Prabha is being too close to Ram and he hates it. He also learns about the traumatized Abdullah and opens the way for him to enter the hotel. Abdullah starts to play mind games with Ram. An agitated Ram calls Kalyan, who is now a DIG, to the hotel.

Abdullah 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 Abdullah.

Cast

Main

• Prithviraj Sukumaran as Abdullah Marakkar
  • Gowrishankar as Young Abdullah
• Indrajith Sukumaran as DIG Kalyan Menon IPS
  • Ananthakrishnan as Young Kalyan
• Saiju Kurup as Parameshwaran Potti
• Vijay Babu as Ram Kumar Nair
  • Madhav as Young Ram
• Isha Talwar as Mythili Ram Kumar
• Hannah Reji Koshy as Prabha Nair

Supporting

• Suzanne Bernert as Anastasia Aubert
• Siddique as Basheer Marakkar, Abdullah's father
• Sreelakshmi as Beewathu, Abdullah'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

Voice Cast

• Mamta Mohandas as Dr. Shwetha
• Manikandan Pattambi as a police officer

Release

Theatrical

The film released on theatres on 25 August 2022.^[1]

Home media

The digital rights of the film is acquired by Disney+ Hotstar and started streaming from 30 September 2022.^[2]

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.”^[3] 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".^[4] 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".^[5] 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".^[6] 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.^[7] A reviewer of Onmanorama called it "a serious drama trivialised by confused mix of theatrics".^[8]