Vettaikaaran (transl. Hunter) is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language action film directed by debutant B. Babusivan and produced by AVM Productions. The film stars Vijay and Anushka Shetty in the lead roles, while Srihari, Salim Ghouse, Sayaji Shinde and Ravi Shankar appear in supporting roles. Gopinath handled the cinematography while V. T. Vijayan was the film's editor. This was Vijay's first film with AVM Productions and the only film B. Babusivan ever directed.
| Vettaikaaran | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | B. Babusivan |
| Written by | B. Babusivan |
| Produced by | M. Balasubramanian Gurunath Meiyappan |
| Starring | Vijay Anushka Sanchita Padukone Sathyan |
| Cinematography | S. Gopinath |
| Edited by | V. T. Vijayan |
| Music by | Vijay Antony |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Sun Pictures (India) Ayngaran International(UK) Thameens(Kerala) FiveStar(Malaysia) Sri Sai Ganesh Productions(Andhra Pradesh) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 175 minutes[1] |
| Country | India |
| Language | Tamil |
Vettaikkaran received mixed reviews from critics, but was a commercial success and completed a 100-day theatrical run.[2][3] The film has collected $1,399,911 at the overseas box office.[4]
Plot
Ravi is a youngster from Thoothukudi who aspires to become a police officer like his role model, Encounter Specialist DCP Devaraj IPS. After completing his PUC, he joins a college in Chennai and also earns a living by driving an auto rickshaw. During the course, he meets Suseela, an IT professional and falls in love with her. Although Suseela rejects Ravi's advances at first, with the help of her grandmother, Ravi succeeds in winning Suseela's heart. Meanwhile, Chella is a gangster and womanizer, meets Ravi's friend Uma in a public place, where she is taking donations for some cause, and immediately develops an attraction to her. When Uma asks Chella to contribute money, he willingly donates by inserting a rupee note in her jacket. Uma feels ashamed and tells her father what happened.
Ravi finds out what happened to Uma through her father, he comes to her defence and beats up Chella, hospitalizing him. His troubles start from there as Chella's father, a powerful don named Vedanayagam, with the help of his right-hand man, a corrupt police officer Kattabomman, begins to create havoc in Ravi's life. Ravi is soon thrown into jail on a false case of drug smuggling and is expelled from college. Suseela is willing to help him where she goes to Devaraj and pleads with him to help Ravi, but Devaraj initially refuses to help as his entire family had died at the hands of Vedanayagam and he himself was blinded by him because he had taken action against him and his gang. However, with the help of his people known in the police department, He saves Ravi from being killed in a fake encounter led by Kattabomman. It is at this stage that Ravi takes up a new persona called Police Ravi to clean up the illegal activities of Vedanayagam and instill hope in the public, something that Devaraj was unable to do.
In the process, however, Vedanayagam kills Ravi's close friend Sugu, prompting Ravi to kill Chella in retribution. Vedanayagam decides to become a minister, in order to prevent Ravi from targeting him and his activities. As Ravi finally plans to kill the newly sworn in minister Vedanayagam, The police arrive to arrest him. However, Ravi sees Devaraj in the crowd and announces Vedanayagam's location to him just as he is being arrested, allowing Devaraj to assassinate Vedanayagam, effectively avenging his family's death. Devaraj is reinstated into the police force and offers to make Ravi a police officer. However, Ravi refuses, stating that he has found the police officer within himself and that is all he needs to succeed in life.
Cast
- Vijay as "Police" Ravi
- Anushka Shetty as Susheela aka Susi
- Sanchita Padukone as Uma, Ravi's friend
- Sathyan as Sugu, Ravi's close friend
- Srihari as ACP Devaraj IPS, Ravi's role model
- Salim Ghouse as Vedanayagam, the main antagonist
- Sayaji Shinde as ACP Kattabomman, a corrupt police officer
- Srinath as Valayapathi, Ravi's friend
- Ravi Shankar as Chella Vedanayagam, Vedanayagam's son
- Delhi Ganesh as Ravi's father
- Lakshmi Ramakrishnan as Ravi's mother
- Sukumari as Susheela's grandmother
- Manikka Vinayagam as Uma's father
- Ravi Prakash as Police Commissioner of Chennai
- Cochin Haneefa as Complex Owner
- Bala Singh as Rajasekhar
- Jeeva as Sandi
- Jayashree as Chella's wife
- B. Jayalakshmi as Jaanu
- Manobala as Reporter
- Munnar Ramesh as Police constable
- Maran as Ravi's friend
- Kalairani
- Niya Renjith
- Imman Annachi
- Kimu Gopal as IAS (special appearance in the song "Puli Urumudhu")
- Jason Sanjay (special appearance in the song "Naan Adicha")
- Madalsa Sharma Chakraborty(special appearance)
- Ashok Raja (special appearance in the song "Puli Urumudhu")
Production
Development
During the filming of Kuruvi, B. Babusivan served as one of his assistant directors in the film and wrote the dialogues. Sivan was later prompted to begin his maiden directorial venture with Vijay in the lead role. He was eventually chosen as the director for the next feature film to be produced by AVM Productions. The project was originally titled as Police Ravi but in August 2008 it was re-titled as Vettaikkaaran, taken from the 1964 film of the same name starring M. G. Ramachandran.[5]
Vettaikaran was formally launched the next month. The film's director Babusivan, producers M. Balasubramaniam and B. Gurunath Meyyappan, Vijay and his wife, Vijay Antony, S. A. Chandrasekhar and director Dharani were present at the film's inauguration.
Casting
Perarasu and Hari were mentioned for the project, but AVM Productions chose B. Babusivan as the director of the film.[6][7] Anushka Shetty was selected as lead female role opposite to Vijay for the first time.[8] Cinematographer Gopinath was chosen to be the lead cameraman in the film after Ravi Varman was dropped from the film.[9] V. T. Vijayan was signed as the film's editor.
Filming
Vijay experimented with his look in two songs. In "Karigalan", the left half of his body is a man where the right half is a female. The song is also notable for featuring Vijay without a moustache in his career for the first time; Vijay would eventually portray a full clean-shaven character in The Greatest of All Time (2024). The look in Karigalan was suggested by Dinesh after he watched Aamir Khan in a Tata Sky advertisement. In "Oru Chinna Thamarai", Vijay sports a long hair wig. Regarding his long hair look, Vijay reveals that he "always wanted to" try long hair.[10]
Soundtrack
| Vettaikaaran | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by | ||||
| Released | 23 September 2009 | |||
| Recorded | Audiophiles | |||
| Genre | Feature film soundtrack | |||
| Length | 26:33 | |||
| Label | Sony Music | |||
| Vijay Antony chronology | ||||
| ||||
Soundtrack was composed by Vijay Antony and met with a positive response. The song "Naan Adicha" was partially copied from the Marathi song "Ye Go Ye Ye Maina" from the film Jatra, composed by Ajay-Atul.
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Singer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Naan Adicha" | Kabilan | Shankar Mahadevan | 4:35 |
| 2. | "Karigalan" | Kabilan | Suchith Suresan, Sangeetha Rajeshwaran | 4:15 |
| 3. | "Puli Urumudhu" | Kabilan | Ananthu, Mahesh Vinayakram | 4:15 |
| 4. | "Chinna Thamarai" | Viveka | Krish, Dinesh Kanagaratnam, Bonekilla, Suchitra | 4:33 |
| 5. | "Uchimandai" | Annamalai | Krishna Iyer, Shoba Chandrasekhar, Charulatha Mani, Shakthisree Gopalan | 4:12 |
| Total length: | 24:07 | |||
Release
Critical reception
Sify gave the film a 4/5 star rating, and wrote the "major plus for the movie are the five peppy songs tuned by Vijay Antony which are choreographed well ... The action scenes by Kanal Kannan are superbly choreographed. Gopinath’s camera is slick and editing is fast-paced".[11] Behindwoods rated 4/5 and stated "The charismatic screen presence of Vijay, enjoyable musical tracks, sparkling stunts, fiery punch lines, the signature lighter moments and foot tapping numbers, makes the movie entertain the family audience, and stated that director B. Babusivan had made a wholesome family entertainer movie.[12] The Times of India gave 3.5 stars out of 5 criticising Babusivan for failing to properly tell the story in the second half.[13] Ananda Vikatan rated the film 38 out of 100.[14]
Dubbed versions
The film was dubbed in Hindi as Dangerous Khiladi 3 and was released on 2014.[15] The Telugu dubbed version is Puli Veta.
Accolades
| Award | Category | Recipient | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vijay Awards | Favourite Hero | Vijay | Won |
| Favourite Heroine | Anushka | Won | |
| Favourite Film | Vettaikaran | Nominated | |
| Favourite Song | "Oru Chinna Thamarai" | Won | |
| Best Music Director | Vijay Antony | Nominated | |
| Best Villain | Salim Ghouse | Nominated | |
| Best Male Playback Singer | Krish | Nominated | |
| Best Lyricist | Kabilan | Nominated | |
| Best Stunt Director | Kanal Kannan | Nominated | |
| Filmfare Awards South | |||
| Best Lyricist | Kabilan ("Karikaalan") |
Nominated | |
| Best Lyricist | Vivega (Oru Chinna Thamarai) |
Nominated | |
| Best Male Playback Singer | Krish ("Oru Chinna Thamarai") |
Nominated | |
| Best Female Playback Singer | Suchitra ("Oru Chinna Thamarai") |
Nominated | |
| Edison Awards | Best Male Playback Singer | Krish ("Oru Chinna Thamarai") |
Won |
References
- ^ "Vettaikaaran". British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
- ^ Nair, Sree Prasad (19 May 2016). "From Ghilli to Theri: 10 Ilayathalapathy Vijay action blockbusters one should know!". CatchNews.com. Archived from the original on 13 December 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
- ^ "'Love Today' to 'Vettaikaran': Ten times when Vijay delivered a super hit film with a debutant director". The Times of India. 17 June 2020. Archived from the original on 17 November 2021. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
- ^ "Vettaikaran (2009)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
- ^ "Vijay to turn 'Vetaikkaaran' after loading 'Villu'". IndiaGlitz. Archived from the original on 24 August 2008. Retrieved 2 March 2011.
- ^ Karthick (25 February 2009). "Wishes to Babu Sivan, all the best in his first film". Naive Expressions.
- ^ "'Jeyam' Raja to direct Vijay's 50th flick". 2 February 2009.
- ^ "Anushka Vijay's Lady Love". TamilWire. 2008. Archived from the original on 31 December 2008. Retrieved 28 December 2008.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ "Ravivarman dropped from Vettaikaran". Poochandi. 2009. Retrieved 16 February 2008.
- ^ Sreedhar, Sridevi. "I am ready to experiment: Vijay". Sify. Archived from the original on 12 August 2010. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
- ^ Sify Movies – Review listing. Sify.com (2 December 2012). Retrieved on 18 April 2015.
- ^ Vettaikaran – Tamil Movie Reviews – Vettaikaran Vijay Anushka Vijay Antony Babu Sivan. Behindwoods.com. Retrieved on 18 April 2015.
- ^ Vettaikaran Movie Review, Trailer, & Show timings at Times of India. Timesofindia.indiatimes.com (20 December 2009). Retrieved on 18 April 2015.
- ^ சார்லஸ், தேவன் (22 June 2021). "பீஸ்ட் : 'நாளைய தீர்ப்பு' டு 'மாஸ்டர்'... விஜய்க்கு விகடனின் மார்க்கும், விமர்சனமும் என்ன? #Beast". Ananda Vikatan (in Tamil). Archived from the original on 8 October 2021. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
- ^ IndiaGlitz (23 February 2011). "Anushka's 'Puliveta' in March - Tamil News". IndiaGlitz.com. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
External links
- Vettaikaaran at IMDb