Polladhavan (2007)

Polladhavan (transl. Ruthless Man) is a 2007 Indian Tamil-language action drama film written and directed by Vetrimaaran in his directorial debut. Starring Dhanush and Ramya, the film revolves around a man whose life improves after buying a bike, and turns upside down after it is stolen.

Three songs and the background score were composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, while Yogi B and Dhina composed one song each. Velraj was the cinematographer, V. T. Vijayan edited the film and Rambo Rajkumar choreographed the stunts. The film was released on 8 November 2007 and received a positive response. It was remade in a number of languages owing to its success.

Plot

Prabhu Shankar is a happy-go-lucky middle-class man who spends time playing carrom in the streets with his friends Sathish and Kumar among others. He and his father keep falling into minor misunderstandings. He falls in love with a girl named Hema, whom he meets at a bus stop. When he is caught in the act of stealing a pittance from his father during his friend's sister's wedding, Prabhu questions his father's responsibility as his parent. Hurt by these words, his father gives Prabhu some of his savings and tells him to do something with his life and he purchases a black Bajaj Pulsar bike with the money.

While his family initially berates him for buying the motorcycle, he soon secures a job at a bank due to his bike, earning respect at home. He forms an interminable attachment with his bike since it became his streak of luck, from getting a job to Hema eventually reciprocating his feelings. The bike eventually saves his life from a freak incident. However it is stolen during his outing with Hema, subjecting Prabhu to unfathomable anguish as he searches for his bike with his friends. When his family asks him about his bike, he tells them that he has given it to a dealer for servicing. Prabhu comes into conflict with the underworld when he witnesses a brutal murder by a gang in Kasimedu in North Chennai by a smuggling don named Selvam and his accomplices.

Prabhu finds out that his bike was stolen by a petty thief who turns out to be in connection with Selvam's egoistical younger brother Ravi. Prabhu traces the culprit and hands him over to the local police station. A formal complaint is lodged on the culprit on the same night. Later that night, Prabhu confesses to his family that his bike was stolen. His family is very upset, but Prabhu's father assures them that the bike will be found in no time, having developed respect for Prabhu after he had become responsible by being employed. The next morning, Ravi visits Prabhu's locality and threatens him to withdraw the complaint against the culprit. When Prabhu refuses, Ravi pushes Prabhu's father during the argument, which prompts Prabhu to hit Ravi.

Ravi's accomplices arrive at the scene, and Prabhu manages to fight them all, leaving Ravi beaten and embarrassed in public. Selvam returns home on bail from a murder charge. When he finds out what happened to Ravi, he is furious and sends his henchmen to attack Prabhu without knowing the reason for his brother's embarrassment. Prabhu, along with Kumar, meets Selvam at his own residence in Kasimedu while Ravi is not home. Prabhu tells the truth to Selvam, but the latter refuses to believe that Ravi and his men stole his bike. After hearing from his close ally Out, Selvam believes Prabhu, apologising and promises Prabhu that he will do whatever he can to get his bike back. However, it is too late for Prabhu's father, who is attacked by Ravi's men. He is admitted to a hospital, and Prabhu breaks down after learning that his father would never walk again as his right leg was paralysed by the attack.

Selvam, Ravi, and their men visit Prabhu to condole and apologise for what happened this time. Prabhu turns down the apology, and again, an immediate fight is about to break out between Prabhu and Ravi before Selvam separates them both, blaming Ravi for the ordeal caused. The attack on his father makes Prabhu realise how much he loves his father and swears to protect his family at any cost. Although he wants to stay away, Prabhu invariably gets dragged into rubbing shoulders, caused by Ravi's antics, who now targets his family to seek revenge. Prabhu's bike is caught by the NCB and they nab him, suspecting him of drug smuggling using his bike. They release him after Prabhu tells them that his bike was stolen and shows them his FIR copy, but he does not tell them about Ravi or Selvam.

Prabhu learns that his bike was stolen by Selvam's men to escape the scene of a murder, but it was Ravi who smuggled drugs in his bike's petrol tank. Prabhu loses his job as his bike was a source of transportation, and as he was remanded to police custody for one night. Prabhu also gets despair from Hema's father (Boys Rajan) for being involved unwillingly with Selvam's men. Meanwhile, Ravi makes one more attempt on Prabhu's life, but he is subdued again by Prabhu. Selvam becomes unhappy about this and warns him to quit smuggling if he ever gets in Prabhu's business anymore. Ravi accuses Selvam of being a non-caring brother, and Out intervenes and warns Ravi to mind his language. Surprisingly, Selvam himself comes in support of his brother to lash out at Out.

Out separates briefly from Selvam after this conflict. The next day, Selvam and Ravi get attacked by unknown gangsters when they are travelling in their car outside the city. Selvam asks his brother to stay inside the car and handles the killers on his own. He gets brutally injured only to find out that he has been stabbed by his own brother Ravi. The attack was arranged by Ravi himself to kill Selvam. Ravi delivers the killer blow before telling that Selvam is too complacent of Prabhu and he is going to kill him, after which Selvam dies. Ravi creates a scene among Selvam's family and henchmen. Out, who is not aware of the mastermind behind the assault on Selvam, is furious and vows to kill every enemy of his mentor Selvam, including Prabhu.

Prabhu eventually gets his bike back, but is disheartened when he finds it vandalized, so he takes it to the service centre for restoration. While there, he learns that Ravi is after him and his family. He first goes to save Hema. After securing her, he goes to save his family. He thinks that the only way to stop this is to confront Ravi himself. He takes down all the men sent by Ravi, who comes in his way.

Meanwhile, Prabhu's family is chased down in Kumar's auto rickshaw by Ravi's men. Prabhu finds Ravi hiding in an ice factory and engages in a fight with him. Prabhu overpowers Ravi during the fight; the latter tries to escape from him but Prabhu manages to subdue Ravi under the knife, threatening him to ask his men to leave Prabhu's family, which he does, and his men spare Prabhu's family and Kumar.

When Prabhu is about to leave, Ravi provokes him to continue the fight until death. Prabhu manages to dodge Ravi's swing of his knife and gets a steel rod to fatally knock him down. Out arrives at the scene after having learnt that it was Ravi who orchestrated Selvam's death. Out smiles at Prabhu and lets him go while he stares down at Ravi's corpse, satisfied that Prabhu had done his job for him, avenging Selvam's death and remembering his words of Prabhu: "He is fearless and should be spared." A smiling Prabhu quietly leaves the scene on his beloved Pulsar.

Cast

Production

Vetrimaaran, who earlier worked as an assistant to Balu Mahendra, prepared a script for Dhanush, who was the lead hero of the films he worked in, and Dhanush immediately accepted the offer after hearing the story. The film titled Desiya Nedunchalai 47 was initially launched with Yuvan Shankar Raja as the music director and N. K. Ekambaram as the cinematographer. After he found trouble finding producers with A. M. Rathnam and Salem Chandrasekhar leaving the project after initial interest, Dhanush's sister Dr. Vimala Geetha agreed to produce the film, but she also dropped the film. Dhanush's father Kasthuri Raja finally agreed to produce the film, and Kirat Bhattal was signed as heroine, while Harris Jayaraj was selected as music director. However, after two days of shoot, the film was shelved, and Dhanush opted to pursue other films after the surprise success of his Thiruvilayadal Arambam. The film's collapse saw Vetrimaaran approach S. Kathiresan, of Five Star Films, and narrated to him the stories he had prepared. However, Kathiresan did not like Desiya Nedunchaalai 47, but agreed to bankroll the story of Polladhavan.

Vetrimaaran has since described that he had "ample time" for his production works of Polladhavan as "Dhanush had confidence in him". Production designer Durai helped him rope in Deva to score the film's music, while Dhanush also recommended cinematographer Velraj to Vetrimaaran after the pair had worked together in Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram. Vetrimaaran chose Kannada language actor Kishore to make his Tamil film debut after his assistant gave him rave reviews of the actor's performance in the unfinished Prashanth-starrer Petrol. The team held test shoots with both Kajal Aggarwal and Poonam Bajwa for the film and released the stills to the media, but Kajal Aggarwal had scheduling issues with her telugu film Chandamama. Vetrimaaran had finished two schedules before finalising on Ramya. The director revealed that there was initially an issue with the actress after she got offended by his words and did not come for the shoot for three days, before Durai intervened. The film's story was inspired partly by the lost bike of his friend Andrew and the variety of experiences he had tracking down his vehicle. Vetrimaaran revealed that when he wrote the script, he made many changes to suit the visual medium and for Dhanush on his physical attributes while playing an action hero. When questioned about its relevance to Bicycle Thieves, he stated that it "is a disgrace to Bicycle Thieves if it is compared with Polladhavan".

Soundtrack

The soundtrack consisted of five songs, three of them composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, while rapper Yogi B and Dhina composed each one track. The song "Engeyum Eppodhum" is a remix of the same-titled song from the 1979 film Ninaithale Inikkum. Responding to allegations that the song "Minnalgall Koothadum" was a rip-off of Akon's "Smack That", Prakash Kumar stated "I may have been inspired, but I did not just copy that song".

Release and reception

The film was released on 8 November 2007 on Diwali day alongside Azhagiya Tamil Magan, Machakaaran, Vel and Kannamoochi Yenada.

The critic from Sify.com stating that "Vetri has made his mentor proud, and his style of narration and takings are very similar to the ace director "Balu Mahendra". The reviewer from The Hindu stated that "at no point does Polladhavan sag and that writer-director Vetrimaran has slogged through his screenplay and the result shows." Kalki praised the acting of Dhanush and other actors, Karunas's humour, Prakash's music, Velraj's cinematography, Vijayan's editing, Rajkumar's stunts and also praised Vetrimaaran for narrating old plot differently but panned the violence and song placements as speed breakers. Malini Mannath of Chennai Online wrote "With a script that is cleverly etched, its racy narration, some well-defined characters, suitably cast actors, and a realistic backdrop to the scenes, whether it's the middle-class ambience or the underworld, 'Polladhavan' turns out be a slickly packaged entertainer from debutant director Vettrimaran".

Controversies

The administrators of the Thyagaraya College opposed a dialogue spoken by the character Prabhu questioning his father for making him study B. A. in the college.

Awards

The movie received four Vijay Awards, including one for Best Director.

Remakes

Polladhavan was remade in Telugu as Kurradu (2009), in Kannada as Punda (2010), in Bengali as Borbaad (2014) in Sinhala as Pravegeya (2015), and in Hindi as Guns of Banaras (2020).

References

External links

Polladhavan at IMDb

Polladhavan at Rotten Tomatoes