Udhayam NH4

<p>Prabhu falls in love with Rithika, his classmate, who reciprocates his feelings, but are separated after Rithika’s father disapproves of their relationship. Prabhu, lovelorn, discusses the with his friends and plan to kidnap Rithika to elope. Meanwhile, Rithika’s father, Avinash Gowda, appoints encounter specialist ACP Manoj Menon IPS, who questions Rithika’s male friend Deepak about Prabhu. Deepak claims that Prabhu is a drug addict and was always trying to woo Rithika, who started to avoid him because of Prabhu. After that, the plot continues when Manoj tries to track Prabhu and his friends. In the attempt, they track down a message from another friend named Umesh, asking Prabhu and friends to come to bus stand, only to find Manoj and his team arresting the guy for more information. Manoj goes to a railway station where the train in which Prabhu and Rithika are travelling to Chennai via , . He finds Rithika and forcefully drags her into his jeep. As the flashback winds again (this time by Rithika), she fell for Prabhu after seeing him on many instances showing his presence of mind. As the flashback ends, Manoj finds Prabhu on the highway, where he does not stop until he runs over pieces of glass put down by Prabhu. They get into a brawl where Prabhu loses, and Manoj continues in the highway but has to stop in a railway signal at . Prabhu takes his chance and threatens Manoj, keeping his throat under a blade and taking Rithika with him. After a cat and mouse chase, Manoj calls Prabhu, saying that his friend needs immediate treatment after an accident. He goes in search of Manoj and involves in a fight with him again. Now, after the stroke of midnight, Rithika turns 18, giving her the right for choosing her partner. After that, Manoj leaves the highway, as he could not do anymore, according to the law. While working with for (2005), producer Vetrimaaran prepared a script for , who was the lead hero of the film he worked on, and Dhanush immediately accepted the offer after hearing the story. The film titled was was initially launched with as the music director and as the cinematographer. However, he found trouble finding producers with and Salem Chandrasekhar leaving the project after initial interest, Dhanush’s sister Dr. Vimala Geetha agreed to produce the film, but she also dropped the film. Dhanush’s father finally agreed to produce the film, and was signed as heroine, while was selected as music director. However, after two days of shoot, the film was shelved, and Dhanush opted to pursue other films after the surprise success of his (2006). The film’s collapse saw Vetrimaaran approach producer Kadiresan and narrated to him the stories he had prepared, but the producer did not like , but later agreed to work on another project titled . Vetrimaaran restarted the film as a creative producer with , and chose to give the script to debutant director , who was initially nervous to take over a script by a National film winner. The team tried to re-take the title , but this name was already registered by , which hence led to the renaming of the title to . approached for the lead role, who immediately accepted it. , who was initially approached for a role in 2006, was re-approached but was unable to commit dates for the film. Subsequently , who Vetrimaaran had been discussing a role in his next film with, was signed on to play a pivotal role in the film. Debut actress was selected to play the lead female role. was signed to appear in a cameo appearance in the film but eventually did not feature. Newbies Ajai, Kalai and Karthi play Siddharth’s friends. is the cinematographer, music by editing will be by The film will be produced jointly by and as a tie-up between their companies Meeka Entertainment and Grass Root Film Company. The filming took place only on real locations, where crowds delayed shootings up to four days, making hidden cameras mandatory. The soundtrack album was composed by . The music rights were acquired by . On , the track “Yaaro Ivan” was unveiled at . Actor sang the Telugu version of this song. The satellite rights for the film were secured by . The film was given a “U/A” certificate by the . On 14 February 2013, the first film trailer was released at . released in around 250 theatres across along with (2013). Upon release, generally received favourable reviews. Baradwaj Rangan of thanked the film crew for a well treated, but slight story, “[…] the constant infusion of colour keeps us hooked. I don’t think I’ve laughed so much at a cop telling his nagging wife he loves her.” gave 3 of 5 stars and concluded, “To sum it all, Udhayam NH 4 comes across as a well packaged product that has many things going in its favor and is sure to have patrons from the youth along with other sections of the audience too.” recommended the film, “The presentation is unique as it doesn’t have the trappings of usual masala potboilers.” rated the film 3.5 out of 5 and stated that the story is simple but the taut screenplay with unexpected twists and turns at the right time makes Udhayam a good watch. Mahalakshmi Prabhakaran of criticized the performance of Ashrita Shetty heavily, “As the character who’s the prize catch for both the cop and the boyfriend, the role’s every debutante actress’ dream. But Hrishita just doesn’t match up. We are not even going to comment on her poor delivery of Tamil. Yes, she might be a Kannadiga in the movie, but that’s no excuse!”, giving the film an average rating of 3. S. Saarawathi of wrote, “Udhayam NH4 is a racy entertainer that keeps you glued to the screen.” Sidharth Varma of rated it 3.5 out of 5 stars and said, “The movie brings in a whiff of fresh air in the dialogue department. The characters switch between the four south Indian languages and English depending on the place where the scene is set and the situation, which adds to the authenticity of the movie. The drama is injected in the right doses through the incidents on the highway, and flashbacks tell us more about each character.” Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of recommended the film, “Take a ride down this highway just to see how a talented director can make a simple story engaging.” found the film to be “just an alright movie”, and thought, that Ashrita Shetty wasn’t capable enough to play the female lead role. gave the film 3.5 out of 5 saying that the film is well crafted.</p>