Arasatchi

<p>Brammanadham, a lawyer who defends rapists and murderers, is killed by a cricket ball hit by Siddharth. Siddharth is the General Manager of a five-star hotel owned by Rajesh. Rajesh’s daughter, Lara, returns from abroad to join her father’s hotel, but only as a trainee under the macho Siddharth. Soon, Lara falls in love with Siddharth. The time for duets begins. Lara’s friend, Prakash, is a public cause campaigner. His efforts lead to a raid on a brothel, resulting in a minister’s arr- The minister’s goons kill Prakash, and Siddharth witnesses the crime. However, Siddharth refuses to testify, prompting Lara to leave him. Janakiraman defends the killer and gets him acquitted. Siddharth then kills Janakiraman. Major Vishwanath, a military officer, witnesses the murder and postpones his heart surgery to ensure the killer is caught. Siddharth now explains why he is targeting lawyers who defend criminals. Vishwanath ultimately abandons his mission. Next, Karunakaran defends a rapist, and he is also killed. The turn then comes for advocate Ashok Mehta, who arrives from Delhi. The twist is that Ashok is Siddharth’s brother-in-law, as Ashok’s wife is Siddharth’s long-lost sister. The story now shifts to the brother-sister relationship. In the end, Ashok is shot dead by Siddharth on the court premises. The police open fire, and bystanders form a human wall and are shot. Siddharth tells the TV crew how his mission has now spread to the masses. After the success of , Maharajan was supposed to direct in another project but later got dropped and Maharajan went on to remake Vallarasu in Hindi as with . Meanwhile, Maharajan announced his next project with Arjun playing the lead role. Miss Universe 2000 made her acting debut in Tamil with this film. The filming was held at Le Royal Meridian Hotel, Chennai, and the songs were picturised at locations in London, New Zealand and Canada. The song “Mughalai Mughalai” choreographed by Raju Sundaram was shot at London especially at London Central Tower. During the making of the film, music composer fell out with the director. Because of this, the song “Ippadiyea Vittu” was not shot, and it appears only in soundtrack version The film was completed in 2003 but got delayed due to financial problems and finally released in 2004; in between production delays, Maharajan finished with . Before release, a poster featuring the tagline “When Justice Fails” created controversy, which caused a lawyer to file a case citing that the film would portray lawyers in bad light. However the case was sorted after the high court dismissed the petition. The music was composed by . Malini Mannath wrote for , “A knot had potential and would have been ideal for the ‘action king’ if only the screenplay had been etched more carefully, the narration tightened, with more ‘action’ given to Arjun than to factors like tanker-blasts, etc.” wrote, “Arjun does his usual song and fights convincingly while Lara Dutta is too loud and is there only for glamour and songs. The film looks out-dated as it has been years in the making”. Visual Dasan of called the film “above average”.</p>