One man’s sanity is another man’s circus. Wonder who said this? The mad man who just had a great time at the theatres on a Pongal day watching Falimy-director Nithish Sahadev’s extremely satisfying Tamil debut Thalaivar Thambi Thalaimaiyil (TTT).
The spark that lights this rapid-fire cracker of a comedy lies in the matchstick that a mentally unstable man holds as he locks himself in his uncle’s house and attempts to burn it down. When Jeeva (Jiiva) rescues him, the former asks him one simple question that hums beneath the surface of this fantastic comedy: “Am I a good guy or a madman?”
And in TTT, every single character does something that borders on absurdity, and this proves to be the comedy gold mine that Nithish spends in this two-hour taut dark comedy. Take, for instance, the character of Ilavarasu; he is supposed to be doing a million things on the night before his daughter Sowmya’s (Prathana Nathan) wedding. Instead, when the news comes that his elderly neighbour has died inauspiciously, he spirals and begins to accuse the deceased’s son, his arch-enemy, of having killed his father to disrupt the wedding.
What would you say about Mani (Thambi Ramaiah), the man who wouldn’t even feed medicine to his bedridden father Chellappa, but now claims some newfound affection for him after his death, because it provides him with an opportunity to attack Ilavarasu’s ego? He declares that he would hold a grand funeral procession for his father the following day at 10:30 AM, the same time as the muhurtham next door.
Stuck between these two unhinged families is the Panchayat President, Jeeva Rathinam, who vows to preside over both the ceremonies and sort out the issue, one that only seems to pull him into the dirt every step of the way.
Thalaivar Thambi Thalaimaiyil (Tamil)
Director: Nithish Sahadev
Cast: Jiiva, Prathana Nathan, Thambi Ramaiah, Ilavarasu
Runtime: 115 minutes
Storyline: A panchayat president gets stuck in a precarious position when an elderly man passes away on the day of his neighbour’s wedding, ensuing chaos and mayhem.
The brilliance of Nithish’s script, original and neatly structured, comes from how he populates the world with many colourful characters, who all wreak havoc in the already chaotic situation, or become victims of the same, like Kanniyappan, the groom, and his family, who have no idea what’s awaiting them at the bride’s house.
With every hurdle Jeeva escapes, you already begin to anticipate what the other set-ups in the plot might have in store, like Thavidu Moorthi (Jensen Dhivakar is impressive as always), Jeeva’s rival from the opposition party, whose only aim is to light a new match whenever the quarrel seems to get quiet. You also begin to wonder what Chellappa’s brothers, a trio of hardened criminals, plan to do. Then what about the ‘one-sided lover’ who persistently follows the bride Sowmya? When is he going to create trouble?
Even in his first film, Falimy, Nithish took a hilarious swing at these leeches who claim to be in love and live in their own delusional world. Here, when the stalker harasses Sowmya, it is her reaction and the subsequent consequences of that explosion that pivot the film further into the absurd.
A still from ‘Thalaivar Thambi Thalaimaiyil’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Nithish displays an exceptional ability to create easy chuckles out of the ordinary almost every five minutes. Like a moment when Jeeva casually escorts a troublesome man out of a conversation and closes the door on him so nonchalantly. Or the fate of a banana seller who regrets asking for a lift from Jeeva. Or when a couple of oppari grannies stumble into the wedding ceremony instead of the funeral next door. Or something as simple as a man jumping into a pit. Even a small dog gets its moment to crack you up.
But that’s not all. What makes TTT a memorable outing is all that it does beyond the laughs. This is a film with its heart in the right place. The sub–plot around the panchayat water tank that oversees the two houses says so much more than a whole film that speaks about the topic could have.
One feels elated for Jiiva; this light-hearted and breezy role brings forth the performer in him and makes him more likeable than most films he has done in the last few years. Meanwhile, composer Vishnu Vijay, known for scoring music for films such as Thallumaala, Falimy, Premalu and Alappuzha Gymkhana, helps set the rhythm to Nithish’s chaotic world.
For a long time, a Malayalam-esque film, at least on Tamil pop culture, automatically seemed to point at an artsy slow-burner. With more titles like TTT in both languages, that notion is bound to get dismantled. While there have been similar attempts at comedy in Tamil recently, they have all inadvertently veered towards direct social messaging; here, Nithin places his bets on the subtext to do its job, as all good films do.
Thalaivar Thambi Thalaimaiyil is precisely the kind of grounded dramedy that Tamil cinema fans who watch Malayalam films have yearned for. Now let’s hope that more actors and producers see value in pursuing such gems, and perhaps this might be the start of a healthy trend of Malayalam-esque Tamil films — that is never a wrong thing to aspire for.
Thalaivar Thambi Thalaimaiyil is currently running in theatres
Published – January 15, 2026 04:16 pm IST
