Naan Mahaan Alla

<p>Jeeva is a -based youngster from a middle-class family. Pragasam is Jeeva’s father and a who is also the family’s sole breadwinner. Jeeva meets a woman named Priya at their friend’s wedding and soon they fall for each other. Upon meeting Priya’s father, Jeeva is asked to get a job first to get married. Jeeva accepts and takes the job as a , but soon gets fired. Pragasam, who had witnessed the killing of two youngsters by a group of 5 young men, gets attacked by them, where he is admitted to the hospital. The gang tries to kill him again in the absence of Jeeva but to no avail. Pragasam is brought home and Jeeva starts taking responsibility for his family by reclaiming his lost job and maintaining all the accounts. Looking at the news reports of the girl that boarded his taxi and was raped and then mutilated by the gang, Pragasam calls Jeeva to accompany him to the morgue, where he helps the by providing clues about the killer. Sensing trouble, the gang enlists the help of Pey Babu, one of the member’s uncle, to plan and kill Pragasam after explaining how they killed the girl and her lover. When Pragasam and Jeeva go out to shop for the latter’s sister’s wedding, one of the men calls Jeeva on behalf of a store, thus separating him from Pragasam. The gang then creates a stampede by throwing bottles as one of them stabs Pragasam with a piece of poisoned glass shard. Pragasam soon dies in Jeeva’s arms, leaving Jeeva devastated. Following his cremation, Jeeva tells the cops not to pursue the killers anymore as it would bring nothing, but trouble for his middle-class family. However, Jeeva decides to , fearing the gang might commit more inhumane crimes if they are scot-free. Jeeva recalls one of the men during his father’s death, who looked the same as Pragasam described him during his visit to the morgue. Jeeva enlists the help of his friend and a gangster named Kutti Nadesan to track down the gang. With his influence, Kutti Nadesan asks his gang to bring all the guys who plan for a murder in Chennai so that Jeeva can identify him. While Jeeva is busy identifying the killers, Pey Babu leaves upon being questioned by Nadesan. Jeeva realizes Pey Babu was the man who delivered pamphlets at his home before Pragasam’s murder. A chase ensues and Jeeva succeeds in capturing Pey Babu after a brief fight. He orders him to call the boys and tell them to stay in front of their college. Jeeva succeeds in capturing his father’s killer and tries to escape, but the gang gets alerted and ends up freeing their friend from Jeeva’s custody following a glass bottle attack. One of the gang members stabs Pey Babu to his death. Jeeva chases the attacker near a railway line where the two brutally fight, resulting in the attacker getting run over by a train. Jeeva visits the deceased gang member’s funeral to catch his friends, who escape before Jeeva sees them. They go to the beach and Nadesan is also there, along with his henchmen. The gang gets drunk and vows to kill Jeeva, who contacts Nadesan to find out about the four remaining boys. Noticing the boys yelling, Nadesan asks for specifics and confirms the gang’s location at the beach. While trying to confront the gang, Nadesan and his henchmen are lured into a trap, where they are all eliminated one by one before Jeeva arrives. A brutal fight ensues, leaving the gang members fatally wounded. Jeeva throws them into a pit and departs after burying all of them. After his first feature film , released in February 2009, became a success, receiving much critical acclaim as well, director started to work on the script for his next film. Initially planning to do one titled , which failed to commence due to financial problems, he decided to first direct a film featuring a known lead actor, before coming back to that film. He was ready with the script by August 2009, revealing details about the project. While his previous work was based on sporting incidents in a rural background, this one was said to be a “total city subject”, shot entirely in . An action film, it would deal about problems in city life, according to Suseenthiran. On 19 August 2009, it was announced that the film was titled and would be produced by K. E. Gnanavelraja under the banner of Studio Green, who earlier had produced . It was reportedly based on a real-life incident that happened to one of the relatives of Suseenthiran. He scripted the film for five months. While starred mostly newcomers, Suseenthiran chose Karthi for the lead role in this film as he felt Karthi has an “innocence in his face” that was needed for this role and that he could “convey charm, innocence and being jolly at the same time”. He chose as the lead actress after seeing her performances in the Telugu films and . He felt that her “cute expressions” were what he needed for that character. Soori, who played a comedic role in was again included, while Jayaprakash, who played several supporting roles and rose to fame with his performance in was chosen to play Karthi’s father. As in his previous film, Suseenthiran introduced several new artists, such as five boys who played the villains with one of them being Vinod who played the younger character of in . According to the director, he found three of them “loitering on a popular road in the city”, whilst cinematographer Vijay Milton’s assistant and cinematographer debuted and played pivotal roles. Filming began, after ten days of rehearsals, on 4 September 2009 and was held in cities as , and . In mid-September, reported locations included (ECR) near and later in the environs of the highways near in Chennai. The soundtrack of is composed by , making this his third collaboration with , after scoring highly successful results with (2007) and (2010), and his first with director Suseenthiran, who worked with for his previous film. The soundtrack album, which features five songs, with lyrics penned by and was released on 24 July 2010 at in . The album received extremely positive reviews, with ” ” in particular, sung by composer Yuvan Shankar Raja, becoming hugely popular, topping the charts for several weeks. Pavithra Srinivasan of gave 3/5 stars and described the film is “almost perfect.” Sreedhar Pillai of wrote ” reinvents the staple formula but stands out for its sheer style, speed and storytelling methods.” Bhama Devi Rani of gave 3.5/5 stars, claiming the film to be “entertaining almost till the end”, whilst addressing high praise to both Suseenthiran, who according to her is “turning out to be a treasure” and considering Karthi’s performance as his “best work yet”.</p>