Spadikam

Bhadran's 1995 Malayalam film contains one of the most cited roles of Mohanlal's career. Chacko master, a school headmaster, never finds his son Thomas adequate and constantly belittles him; Thomas runs away and returns years later as a local strongman. At the centre is not a gangster story but a father who, in wanting his son to be a mathematical genius, never sees what he actually is. The father played by Thilakan is among the harshest paternal portraits in Indian cinema, a man who never shows his love and understands the cost too late. The fight and heroic sections answer the commercial expectations of the period, but the film's real strength is in the scenes between father and son. Mohanlal's Aadu Thoma became fixed in Kerala popular culture. Who it's for: viewers who like mainstream Malayalam cinema, father and son drama and Mohanlal's work. Who it's not for: anyone uncomfortable with the density of the violence, or who will find the switches between heroic elevation and family drama uneven.