The problem with twins...

Thadam (தடம், Track, Tamil; 2019)

One often wonders about the fascination of Indian movies with identical twins and the commotion, confusion and melodrama that the swapping of roles brings to the screen. Well, it does not only happen on the silver screen. Living up to the adage that 'life is a stage and we are all actors', art mimics only what takes place in life. In the police archives, one can find many of such shenanigans created by such identical twins. Occasionally, the legal system gets confused. Sometimes the perpetrators get away scot-free. 

This 2019 police procedural Tamil drama highlights such one case. For the records, this story is based on an actual crime in Malaysia, with a little spicing up using artistic liberty.  

In the original case in 2003, a suspect abandoned his car at a police roadblock and scooted off on foot. The police gave chase. The vehicle's trunk was later shown to have held one of the police's most prominent drug haul. The police caught up with the suspect at an apartment. Upon dashing into the apartment, they found two individuals fitting the description of the man they were chasing. They saw a pair of twins and arrested both of them.

The investigation team was at tenterhooks trying to pick out the real culprit. Even though one of the twins was bespectacled, the suspect was not donning glasses at the time of the chase. As they were both using the same car, both men's fingerprints were found in the vehicle. As we know, even though the DNA make-up is the same in identical twins, their fingerprints differ as it is influenced by intrauterine conditions. 

The prosecution team put two brothers on the stand with the charge. The case was, however, dismissed by the presiding judge. Two persons cannot be charged with a crime done by one person, but Forensics could not identify the real McCoy.

'Thadam' is based on the above. To give two over hours' screentime and the ticket's worth, the filmmakers had to drag the storyline to make it a wholesome watch for the whole family. There are love interests, fractured families, feuding parents, a mother with gambling problems, murder and a convoluted storyline to top it all. 

A murder is recorded, and the police investigation identifies a man in a picture snapped by a bystander. The distribution of the image to various police stations revealed two identical twins. The more police look into the suspects, the more either of them could be the murderer. To top it all, the police chief has a personal vendetta against one of them. With a sympathetic cop in the picture who wants to do the right thing and sidekicks who create dry humour, this movie is worth the while.

The postscript credits tell of similar unsolved cases around the whole involving confusion created by identical twins. In 2009 Germany, Husran and Abbas were accused of a multi-million dollar jewellery heist; in 2016, in England, where Patrick and James Hennessy possessed deadly weapons, and 1999 saw Jerome and Tyrone Cooper as serial rapes. All of them escaped conviction.

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