Kolaigaran

<p>The movie begins with the murder of a mysterious woman by an unknown person inside a house. In another scene, Prabhakaran is seen surrendering to the police. The scene shifts to Prabhakaran’s past. Prabhakaran and Dharini are neighbours, and each morning, they coincidentally greet each other as they step out to their respective workplaces. Although Dharini’s friend, who sees this happen every day, warns her to be careful of Prabhakaran as she suspects this is a planned execution, Dharini dismisses her opinion as paranoid. Meanwhile, a gruesome murder occurs at night in a desolate area in , where a man is killed and burned. The next day, the body is found by the locals, and a crime branch Karthikeyan is assigned to the case. The police were not able to identify the murder victim due to his charred face; however, Karthikeyan finds the half-burnt tailor tag in the clothes of the victim and realises that the person is from a different city. He investigates complaints of missing guests at hotels within Chennai. From the information extracted from the tag, he discovers that the murdered man is Vamsi, the younger brother of an influential minister in . Looking into Vamsi’s background, Karthikeyan learns that Vamsi is a habitual molester who used to stalk and harass Dharini, leading Dharini and her mother Lakshmi to escape to Chennai without his knowledge two years ago. Karthikeyan starts his investigation of Dharini and Lakshmi, who admit to their past connection with Vamsi, much to Karthikeyan’s surprise. Similarly, Karthikeyan investigates Prabhakaran about the whereabouts of his neighbours on the date of the murder. Meanwhile, Prabhakaran contacts Dharini via his office desk phone and asks her to do as instructed. Theoretically speaking, Karthikeyan firmly believes that the murder has something to do with Dharini and Lakshmi, and he also suspects they could not have done it on their own without a man’s assistance. During his investigation, Karthikeyan also learns that Prabhakaran is a former -based officer renowned for solving murder cases. When asked for help in solving the case, Prabhakaran says that he cannot provide any assistance. This strengthens Karthikeyan’s suspicions of Prabhakaran, despite his team’s opinions against the idea. In a sudden turn of events, Karthikeyan learns that Prabhakaran has surrendered for the murder. During interrogation, Prabhakaran reveals that he and Dharini are secret lovers. When Prabhakaran learns about Dharini’s past with Vamsi, he wants to help Dharini and kills Vamsi without Dharini’s knowledge. However, when Dharini is asked about Prabhakaran’s story, she claims that she barely knows him, which leads the investigators to believe that Prabhakaran is seriously deluded. To further cement the fact that Prabhakaran is the sole murderer and Dharini and Lakshmi are innocent, a listening device is found in Prabhakaran’s house to prove that it is through this he came to know about Vamsi. The tale takes its turn in the final minutes, and all of the police officers but Karthikeyan believe that the case can be closed as the murderer Prabhakaran has surrendered. Karthikeyan can not believe that Prabhakaran, a police officer who is known for solving murder cases, could make amateur mistakes when disposing of Vamsi’s body. Karthikeyan ponders his suspicions that the murderers of Vamsi were indeed Dharini and Lakshmi, and thus further investigates Prabhakaran’s motive to surrender instead of them. It is found that Prabhakaran lived happily with his wife, Aaradhanaa, who bore a resemblance to Dharini. Unfortunately, she was murdered by Ali, an escaped criminal, who considers himself to be Prabhakaran’s enemy (as shown in the opening scene). Prabhakaran resigns from his job as a police officer and starts to search for Ali, who escaped after murdering his wife. When he learns that the murderer is in Chennai, he moves there to avenge Aaraadhanaa’s death. When Dharini and Lakshmi killed Vamsi in self-defence, Prabhakaran, wanting to help Dharini as she resembles his deceased wife, plots and kills his wife’s murderer the next day and conceals his body instead of Vamsi to misdirect the case investigators from suspecting Dharini and Lakshmi. Karthikeyan gains a newfound respect for Prabhakaran after learning the truth, which he decides to keep a secret. The first look poster of the film featuring Vijay Antony and Arjun was unveiled on 5 June 2018. The shooting of the film went on floors on the same day following a ceremonial pooja. The film is directed by Andrew Louis as his second assignment, who is also a friend of Vijay Antony and eventually returned to his directorial venture after a decade who also shot to prominence for his 2012 directorial venture . Vijay Antony was signed to play the lead role while he was busy shooting for . The filmmakers roped in opposite Vijay Antony to play an important role in the film while he was committed for (2018). Indian-Australian model was also approached to play the female lead role in the film, with the latter making her Tamil film debut. The role of Ashima is speculated to be an innocent character named Dharini from . However, the filmmakers refused to reveal the exact roles of Vijay Antony and Arjun. The filmmakers have revealed that about half of the portions of the shooting segment was completed and as of 29 December 2018 it was also reported that Arjun has wrapped his shoot portions of the film. The shooting of the film was entirely in . The film was marketed and distributed by of BOFTA Media Works Pvt Ltd. The soundtrack was composed by . This film marks Vijay Antony’s second film to have a different music director after (2015). The film released theatrically on 7 June 2019. The film received overall positive reviews. M Suganth critic of gave 3.5 stars out of 5 and wrote that “The initial portions set up the mystery quite nicely and makes us unsure of the motivations of the main characters.”. A critic from wrote that “A well-executed whodunit that would have been even better had it had more zing” S Subhakeerthana critic of gave 3 out of 5 ratings and stated that ” A well-made investigative thriller with solid twists and turns”. A critic of wrote that “One of the primary reasons why Kolaigaran works majorly is because it gives audiences the chance to step into the shoes of its lead characters. ” and gave 3 out of 5 rating. Sudhir Srinivasan critic of gave 2.5 out of 5 and wrote that ‘Ultimately, I liked the seeming sincerity with which the film looks to have been made, even if you walk out fairly underwhelmed”. Sreedhar Pillai critic of stated that “The makers of the film claim that the songs are a commercial necessity to provide some relief from the tension.” and gave 3.25 out of 5 rating. critic gave mixed reviews.</p>