Who doesn’t like suspence? Who doesn’t want that irresistible pleasure of 2/2.5/3 hours of getting to the edge-of-the-seat experience. The eternal fun of ‘whodunit’ thrillers and the guessing game that you go through. Priceless.

Although, I am not so well versed with this genre as I am biased to watching a movie only if the starcast and director fall into place, albeit, I somehow had the privilege to taste some of the finest movies with twisted endings. I’ll be discussing 7 odd movies, the intricate details of what made me hooked to the screen till the last minute.

The movies I’ll be discussing will follow neither any order, nor a linguistic bias. Nevertheless, Be ready for some spoiler, as I’ll be discussing the major plot points and the hooks that caught me through. You can skip the entire block I’ve written about the movie rather than complaining I haven’t warned.

PSYCHO(1960)

Phew! I don’t know where to start, Such a classic. Hitchcock, apparently instructed the theatre owners to not admit anyone who turns up late for the show and the theatre owners had to follow it as well. Why? because it’s Hitchcock, A master craftsman. And, what do you do when a master craftsman’s movie comes out with his masterpiece? You respect it.

‘PSYCHO’ is a movie about a woman thief, who is on a run after stealing her boss’ money, Searching a roof for a night and figuring that one in ‘Bates’ Motel’ is where she would be secure for the night. Little does she has an idea that the motel belongs to ‘Norman Bates’, the simple, handsome looking gentleman with some flamboyant characteristics and an hefty past. What ensues later is the dark journey of Norman Bates, Who you have no clue of the extent he can go through to achieve what he desires, Not to mention his limitless love for his pretty mother whose face is revealed in pre-climax.

You can catch ‘PSYCHO’ in YouTube.

OLDBOY(2003)

Not quite a fan of Korean movie, Yes, Until I saw ‘OLDBOY’ of course! This movie is all about revenge(Which according to me is an unworthy emotion), how long can you sustain the feeling and how long do you seek it.

The movie is diametrically opposite to the confusing description I just gave, simple. Plane brutal human emotions which makes it totally relatable and watchable. The movie opens with a man, healthy enough to one burger less than being called fat, being kidnapped, imprisoned for the rest 15 years of his life, no clue of who captured him, with a television set and unmissed food periodically arriving at his room.

If you haven’t stopped reading yet, you are okay me spilling the beans, but I’d rather stop there. The story then follows an ultimate revenge saga which had me label it as the best vengeance movie on the block. The twist lies in the climax and trust me it isn’t something you expect.

So, There are two OLDBOY, the original Korean version and the English remade version starring Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Olsen, watch the English version only if you have fantasized Scarlet Witch and Thanos making out. Just kidding!

OLDBOY is not available in any ott, You know the sources! 😉

DHURUVANGAL PATHINAARU(2016)

Karthick Naren is one of the underrated prominent filmmaker, the country needs to celebrate. At the age of 21 he made this mind- bending thriller, which everyone just dream of all their life.

D-16 is starts like a ‘Rashomon’, men talking before the flashback begins and ends in a way no one expects it to. It begins as a conversation between an IAS Officer and an retired Police officer. As the story moves ahead, it takes you in a rollercoaster ride of the classic ‘whodunit’ template. Rest assured, the story is unpredictable, No matter what you try. A murder happens, the investigation begins, As you think you’ve found the culprit, The story moves in an altogether different track.

D-16 garnered all the critical and the commercial success it deserved. You can watch D-16 in Amazon Prime

THE USUAL SUSPECTS(1995)

I remember the night I watched this movie, I didn’t sleep. Watching the climax again and again and satiating the fact that this movie exists and is going into my archive. THE USUAL SUSPECTS is the textbook definition of twisted endings. It’s this movie that gave me the orgasm of feeling of the ‘character revelation’ in films. The usual suspects sets ground for how to design a character and its arc, over the course of time and how to break the curiosity in most uncertain way possible.

A shootout on a boat, 2 survivors, 1 majorly injured, 1 minorly, the former tells that he allegedly saw the mastermind of this whole racket, the latter tells the happenings of the exact event, the existence of an urban myth and how the whole racket happens, his alleging that one of his colleagues is behind all this , to agent Dave Kujan, whom I was admiring till the last 1 minute of the movie. The last one minute of the movie is why it is so iconic, why it made it to the list of plot twists ever.

‘THE USUAL SUSPECTS’ is not available in any OTT platform, unfortunate!

THE INVISIBLE GUEST(2016)/BADLA(2019)

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‘Contratiempo’ in Spanish dubbed in English as ‘THE INVISIBLE GUEST’ and remade in Hindi as ‘BADLA’. I don’t know what this kind of suspense is called it’s neither a whodunit nor a twisted ending. I would specifically not call it a twisted ending because it’s not exactly one. But man, when it happenes you’ll keep scratching your heads on how bending it is.

The movie starts from the get go, right from the first frame which is too uncommon and refreshing to see. Badal Gupta is hired as an lawyer to save Naina Sethi to rescue her from the false murder acquisition which allegedly she has committed. As the story progresses, many shocking twists happen which generates too much interest in the story. But the climax is what stands apart. It’s more of a ‘SAW’ kind of a suspense, You have it in front of you, but you are not able to guess it. The plot diverts your mind to that extent that little do you think something as mind-blowing as climax is coming. So, there can be two types of audiences in terms of how you perceive the climax. You’ll either love it to eternity or you’ll hate it to the core. I personally belonged to the former.

Badla and The Invisible Guest is both available in Netflix.

PRIMIAL FEAR(1995)

I have this odd fetish of wanting to see two main leads in a movie like ‘HEAT(1995)’-Al Pacino, Robert de’ niro, ‘THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA(2006)’- Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, ‘The Departed(2006)’- Leonardo di’ caprio, Matt Damon. There’s actually some kind of magic that works when two highly acclaimed performers put forth their performances and make blinking a huge task for the audiences. PRIMIAL FEAR is one such movie which I watched recently and was totally blown at the fact what could ‘experience’ bring into table.

Primal Fear begins with an arrogant lawyer with lots of successful cases in his pocket with his broken relationship with his ex-girlfriend stumbling upon a case with all the odds against him, trying to save an altar boy which apart from him and the boy, played by the mammoth Edward Norton, no one believes. The later part of the story describes how Martin vail is able to or not able to rescue Aaron. How/Why did Aaron really commit the murder, or did he? The movie leaves the audience in a plausible dilemma, A bittersweet feeling of who do you stand for makes you question morality and the fine line between good and evil. If not for anything watch it for the stunning performance of Edward Norton. He’s so charming and pleasing to watch, that this piece of art is the answer for how Edward Norton has the guts to say no to the giant production houses like the MARVEL cinematic universe.

You can watch PRIMIAL FEAR in Netflix.

ANDHA NAAL(1954)

Alright, CinemaScope was founded as a small attempt to celebrate the unsung movies made and didn’t see the limelight. Pardon me, for being so biased towards tamil Cinema for having included two of 7 films as Tamil and not any Bengali or Malayalam cinema as I have little clue on the happenings there. If any of the readers is interested in collaborating, I am open for it. But this movie is special. Specifically, Not everyone’s cup of tea.

‘ANDHA NAAL’ was released in 1954 that is 6 years prior to the classic PSYCHO. Not comparing both, Although I need to establish a fact here that ANDHA NAAL was not an inch less than PSYCHO. In fact, It is Better! I would suggest you to watch this movie as it was made in a difficult era where producers had a hand over when to release the movie, who to cast, what changes to be made in the script. But, Surprisingly, this movie which in spite releasing under a famous movie house of that time didn’t went through any major filtering process that the producer levied for the remainder movies of that period. ANDHA NAAL has got no songs. In an era where 7-8 songs of length 6-7 minutes was a common practice finding this gem was a merely a surprise. After getting rave reviews and failing to make a mark at the cinema hall(due to lack of songs), It gained the cult status over the years. ANDHA NAAL was awarded the certificate of merit for the second best film at the Second National Film Awards.

You’ll forget to blink from the first frame itself, It’s not all rosy, conventional, humble starting to begin a movie ever, It begins with Rajan, A radio engineer by profession shot right into his chest, followed by a brilliant performance of the Sivaji Ganesan, where you are panicked and search for the Ambulance’s number. Not at all exaggerating the performance is so terrific throughout the movie that your eyes are glued to the entirety of the movie. The story continues with the classic whodunit template following a Rashomon effect so brilliantly used. The plot is so unique for 1954, that I can completely understand that the film didn’t work because the other movies that released during that time in Tamil or anywhere in India, for that case, was either devotional or comedy. And this, contrary, was political drama with a educated lead and all well written characters.

The movie is what I call the ‘circular cinema’ climaxing where it begun. ANDHA NAAL is available in YouTube.

What comes to your mind when you think of science fiction movies? ‘Back to the future’, ‘Interstellar’, ‘Inception’, ‘Terminator’, All the over the top drama, that we buy into for a stellar 2.5 or 3 hour escape from the reality, Yes, I know the feeling, Been there done that! But the what about our movies? How many science fictions do we recall when we talk of Indian Cinema?

“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.“

Dr. Emmett Brown (Back to the future)

’24’ which released in 2016 is one such unfortunately underrated movie no one talks about. Everything (Except the song ‘Naan Un’) was placed perfectly. The story goes a full circle and ends where it started and how! I absolutely loved this movie. I loved how they intended to make a high concept science fiction, garnish it with understandable/ relatable logic, wrap it under the star cast of Suriya(Who I’m a big fan of BTW), Samantha, Music of Rahman(Which went unnoticed this time as well), Cinematography of Tirru, Directed by Vikram Kumar(Who has previously directed the mindbender 13B) and hey! looks like you have the perfect recipe of a good film. But Indian audiences meanwhile were not interested. This movie slipped, not exactly bombed but we didn’t celebrate it either.

“நான் ஒரு வாட்ச் மெக்கானிக், இது எல்லம் எனக்கு சர்வ சாதாரணம்.”

“I am a watch mechanic, All this is too easy for me.”

Manikandan (24)

Okay, So without spoiling too much, I’ll try to generate the curiosity about the movie. It is obviously about time travel, as mentioned. But, the catch lies here that it is intertwined in so many twists and turns that somewhere in the middle you get a justification too as to why the movie is titled ’24’. The interval scene too is something of an ideal ‘interval scene’, I crave about in recent movies, but get disappointed. The classic case of setup and payoff too exists in the movie and you’ll be blown how this technique is so magnificently used. The dialogue which he keeps repeatedly saying ” நான் ஒரு வாட்ச் மெக்கானிக், இது எல்லம் எனக்கு சர்வ சாதாரணம். (I am a watch mechanic all this is too easy for me.)”, comes as annoying after the third time, But the last time he says it, impacts the entire flow.

If all this doesn’t convince you to give this movie a try, just see it in Tamil for the sheer acting prowess of Suriya. All three characters, All three different, All played with convincing conviction. As Aathreya, he plays a menacing villain whose terror we feel beyond the screen while watching and long after you’ve left the cinema hall. The way he walks/ talks/ thinks everything about him is threatening. Ruthless, Cold blooded prove to be insufficient adjectives to describe him. As Sethuraman, he plays a scientist, loving father, loving husband, reluctantly loving brother, who convices us that he is capable of pulling of something like a time machine. As Mani(Mani means time in Tamil, so thank me later for giving away this easter egg), he plays a charming adult who acts as a line who connects all the dots left away. It takes an actor like him to potray three characters in a movie and make us feel all three are different.

You can catch ’24’ in YouTube in both Tamil and Hindi versions.