Eenadu

<p>Govindan Raghavan Maarar (Eashwar Prasad in Telugu version), the recently dismissed of ( in Telugu version), describes in a about his sudden termination from the police, due to a common man who walked into his life. An unnamed man is shown strategically placing a travel bag on a train at the city’s Central railway station and in a shopping mall. He then proceeds to place another bag, under the pretense of lodging an , in the toilet of a police station in , Chennai ( , Hyderabad in Telugu version), and then arrives on the rooftop of an under-construction building and sets up his base of operations, equipped with gadgets and instruments. The caller calls up the Commissioner and informs him that five bombs have been planted in locations throughout city, which are programmed to explode simultaneously within 4 hours. The caller demands that he would like to negotiate with a senior government official, who has the full authority. Commissioner seeks the services of the chief secretary to act as the negotiator and also alerts his team involved in intelligence research and surveillance, tapping all the available resources in gathering preliminary information and tracing the location of the caller, who later tips off Natasha Rajkumar (Shilpa Krishna in Telugu version), telling her to reach Anna Salai police station immediately. The Commissioner initially suspects the caller to be bluffing, but his doubts are dispelled as the caller, to prove his seriousness and the police force’s helplessness, reveals that a bomb has been planted in the Anna Salai police station. When the bomb disposal squad find the bomb, there is only three minutes left. They manage to deactivate the bomb after following the caller’s instructions. Natasha reaches the scene on the caller’s instructions and reports about the situation. An intense debate ensues between the Commissioner and the on who would act as the negotiator with the caller. The chief secretary appoints Commissioner as the State’s negotiator with unrestricted power for few hours. The caller sequentially calls and taunts the Commissioner, probing him for his views on religion and philosophy, and finally asks the State to release three terrorists and one convicted arms seller, all who were arrested by Commissioner years ago. Commissioner’s men realise that the caller is using advanced software to automatically switch the numbers and locations of his mobile phone every minute, rendering their manpower and the obsolete equipment useless and prompting them to employ the services of a young hacker, an drop-out. In the meantime, the Commissioner is able to obtain a facial composite of the caller with help of the police officer to whom the caller had approached to lodge the fake FIR, but much of the time passes without any concrete results on the identity or the location of the caller. Ultimately, Commissioner agrees with the caller’s demand and puts two of his best men, Arif Khan and Sethuraman (Gautham Reddy in Telugu version), in charge of handing over the four terrorists at the ( in Telugu version) airstrip. Once there, the caller confirms the identity of the four men via a conference call with Arif and the Commissioner. He then asks Arif and Sethu to unlock their handcuffs and leave them alone at a particular spot. Sethu orders his men to do as told but, at the last moment, Arif decides not to hand over terrorist Abdullah, to ensure all the information regarding the locations of the bombs can be forced out from the caller. Sethu argues with Arif and demands he do as ordered, but Arif forcefully grabs Abdullah and starts walking away. The other three enter a car which explodes soon after, killing them, but the caller knows that Abdullah is alive, and threatens to blow up the remaining bombs across the city unless Arif and Sethu kill Abdullah. The Chief Secretary tells the Commissioner that the has to know about the current situation but the Commissioner disagrees and tells her that he will face the consequences, and orders Arif to kill the terrorist. Arif kills Abdullah and Sethu shoots Arif in the hand to make it look like an attack for self-defense. The caller confirms it via the news and reveals that he was bluffing and there are no more bombs anywhere in Chennai. He tells that as terrorism is instant, justice and safety must be so. Then the Commissioner questions the IIT hacker to trace the caller, but he refuses. The Commissioner looks in the hacker’s computer, discovers the location, and leaves abruptly towards the site. The caller, meanwhile, destroys all of his gadgets with a mini bomb inside a drum. As he leaves his hideout with all his camouflage, the Commissioner catches up to him. Both shake hands; in a voiceover, Commissioner says the caller told him his real name but does not reveal it as it does not have any significance. He adds that the higher most officials saved themselves by framing him as a recluse and the CM fired him. Commissioner admits that they all knew the caller was disturbed because of the insecure environment and the incompetence of the governing authorities but he never imagined him to go to . He also repeats that the facts of this incident cannot be found in any written records but only in the memories of those who actually witnessed it. Commissioner acknowledges that although the incident has ambiguous moral significance, he personally feels that whatever happened, happened for the best. While was cast as one of the lead roles; confirmation that plays the other leading role followed. The film was announced as a trilingual film with reprising Mohanlal’s role in the Telugu version. , who debuted in the 2008 film , was later confirmed for a supporting role. , who played a cop in the Telugu film , plays another supporting cop role. UTV Motion Pictures distributed the film along with , Haasan’s home production company, which produced it. was directed by Chakri, a US-based filmmaker and a close friend of Haasan. Chakri had previously played the role of Govind’s friend, Sai Ram, in , and the role of a child who takes still photographs of Kamal in the 1983 . Neeraj Pandey wrote the film’s dialogue and . The music was composed by Kamal Haasan’s daughter, . The title was changed from ( in Malayalam) to ( ) in early April 2009, named after a novel by Jayakanthan. / started its first filming schedule on 6 February 2009. It completed shooting in 65 days. According to Kamal, portrays the “common man’s anger, angst and suffering”. Describing the film as an and a thriller, the gave the Tamil version a 15 rating, and noted the film had a vigilante theme, as a character placed lives under threat and murdered convicts because of a lack of faith in the justice system. The music was composed by , daughter of . The album contains four songs and a remix. The songs are featured throughout the film. Kamal Haasan, singer Blaaze, and Manyusha Puthran contributed the lyrics. The audio launch was held on 6 September 2009 at Sathyam Cinemas. was initially set to release on 12 August 2009, since the date coincided with the release of Kamal Haasan’s first film . However, owing to technical and administrative difficulties, the release was postponed to 18 September. The film was given a from the , mainly because of its theme – terrorism. In 2015, Telugu version was screened at the Habitat Film Festival. and was released on on 12 February 2010. was released on Blu-ray on 23 February 2010. is available to stream via . Writing for , Gautaman Bhaskaran wrote that is “far more engaging and energetic than its predecessor” and that “superstar Mohanlal plays Chennai police commissioner Raghavan Maraar with rare finesse and extraordinary subtlety … His screen presence is so overwhelming that an equally great Tamil superstar, Kamal Haasan, as the nameless Common Man, is overshadowed”. said that technically the film is picture-perfect and that both Kamal Haasan and Mohanlal coming together is worth the ticket money. It mentioned that unlike in the Hindi version where had an edge over , here the best dialogues were almost equally given to Mohanlal as well, “what elevates the film to a new high is the crisp presentation and outstanding performances from the lead actors, mainly Kamal and Mohanlal, who simply rock”. gave the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and stated that “Debutant director Chakri Toleti’s job is a cakewalk. Having chosen a proven subject, and a formidable star cast which does not have to be told anything beyond the shooting schedule, the captain’s hat sits on his head easily”. Regarding the Telugu version, stated that “For the Telugu audience, is a film which is out of the formulaic pattern and the hero warp Telugu cinema is in, and shows that films like it can be made too which can be seen and enjoyed with the audience taking home something extra too!” gave the film 3 out of 5 stars and stated that “The much-awaited lives up to the big expectations and carries the essence of the original ( )”. A critic from wrote that ” is enjoyable, because of the concept that it’s dealing with, and the fact that it’s a true blue thriller all the way, with zero gimmicks or cheap thrills, right until the end. A sensible flick on terrorism and the common man’s angst is easy to relate to any day”. – Best Actor in leading role</p>