Mambattiyan

<p>IG Ranjith ( ) recalls the memories of a criminal whom he failed to capture. Annachchi ( ) rules a village in western Tamil Nadu. When he is opposed by Mambattiyan’s ( ) father Chinnasamy ( ), the “jameen” kills him. Coming to know of this, Mambattiyan kills Annachi and those in support of him. A group of youngsters in the village join hands with Mambattiyan. They lead a life in a for- By robbing the rich and distributing the wealth to the poor, Mambattiyan becomes the local Robin Hood. Meanwhile, police forces led by Ranjith go from pillar to post to nab Mambattiyan. This is the start of a cat-and-mouse game between the two. Also, Mambattiyan has romance in the form of Kannathal ( ) and Sornam ( ). When Sornam raises a green flag, that means she needs him to come. An officer in disguises realises this and reports it to Ranjith, so one by one, all of his gang members die. Sornam later commits suicide. Meanwhile, Kannathal panicked and asked Mambattiyan to go to a faraway place and forgo his Robin Hood job. Mambattiyan agrees and asks her to wait at the river. With the help of Bullet (Ravi Shanth), a villager, Kannathal waits at the river. Mambattiyan defeats the police forces and escapes. However, Bullet shoots Mambattiyan because whoever captures Mambattiyan gets a rewards of money and land. Kannathal hits Bullet, and he dies, then she dies too. At the end, Ranjith is sad that the whole village is crying, and he takes Mambattiyan’s chain. It was first reported in September 2008, that would remake ‘s 1983 film , with his son Prashanth portraying the lead role of a -esque figure. , and were assigned roles shortly after, while the team also held talks with unsuccessfully for another role. The team began filming in early 2009, with Thiagarajan noting that apart from the plot, most features in the film would be different from the original. Prashanth put on weight for this film and the team shot in the forests of , and . The team also filmed scenes in virgin locales across in the backdrop of waterfalls. By April 2010, production had been ongoing for fifteen months and the film was still incomplete. The team also announced that they were planning to bring in to play a role depicted by in the original, but it did not materialise. Thiagarajan approached to compose the film’s music only after completing the film’s shoot and asked him to retain two songs from the original film. Prashanth and Thiagarajan then briefly postponed the film and began work on another venture, the historical , and subsequently released that film earlier than . The film finally geared up for release in December 2011, more than three years after production began, when the son of a tribal leader called Mambattiyan filed a petition preventing the release of the film. He withdrew the claims shortly after. The soundtrack was composed by and was released live on Sun Music’s channel on 23 November 2011. Actor recorded a song for the film, with the making of the song video being used for promotional purposes. The songs “Chinna Ponnu” and “Kaattuvazhi” were reused from . The film opened in December 2011. Malathi Rangarajan of claimed that “Thyagarajan has developed and executed a screenplay without gaffes, which gallops at commendable speed. Eschewing frills, he holds the viewer’s attention throughout”. In her review, she also added “in action, comedy, sadness and sedateness, Prashanth always makes a mark” and that ” should be a milestone in Prashanth’s career”. also gave the film a positive review, noting “For, makers while replicating the content, invariably fail to capture the soul of the original. But, Thiagarajan has managed to recapture the essence of his earlier work, even while giving the rustic saga a more contemporary feel. The screenplay is taut, the director rarely losing his grip on his narration.” A reviewer from Sify.com noted the film “is a bit dated, though it moves at a rapid pace” and that it “is not engaging like the original”. A critic from noted “It is predictable, tame, outdated and slow. No single scene could be cited as well conceived or well made. Full of cliches”. The film took a good opening at the box office, but petered out to do average business commercially and due to its big budget, failed to recover costs. The song “Malaiyooru” became popular during the early 2010s. This song has been used in the film (2025), with mocking the bride (one of the main character’s ex) dancing to this for her husband and also his brother and father dancing to this song. This song also has been used in the -language film (2025) in a comical situation, just like in .</p>