Velaikkaran (2017 film)

Velaikkaran
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Mohan Raja
Produced by	R. D. Raja
Written by	Mohan Raja N. Baskaran
Screenplay by	Mohan Raja Subha
Story by	Mohan Raja
Starring	Sivakarthikeyan Fahadh Faasil Nayanthara Prakash Raj Sneha Vijay Vasanth
Music by	Anirudh Ravichander
Cinematography	Ramji
Edited by	Ruben Vivek Harshan
Production company	24AM Studios
Distributed by	24AM Studios E4 Entertainment Fox Star Studios
Release date	22 December 2017 (2017-12-22)
Running time	160 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Velaikkaran (lit. Worker) is a 2017 Indian social drama Tamil language film, written and directed by Mohan Raja. Featuring an ensemble cast including Sivakarthikeyan, Fahadh Faasil and Nayanthara, the film has music composed by Anirudh Ravichander and cinematography by Ramji. Produced by R. D. Raja, the film is based on a sales executive named Arivu (Sivakarthikeyan) who fights against food adulteration committed by high-class companies. The film was released on 22 December 2017.^[1][2]

Plot

Arivu (Sivakarthikeyan) hails from Kolaikkara Kuppam a.k.a. Cooliekkara Kuppam, a slum area in Chennai. He is one such responsible youth who wants to focus on the upliftment of his fellow beings and works hard for the same. Arivu starts Kuppam FM 90.8, a local radio channel with the help of the area gangster Kasi (Prakash Raj). In reality, Arivu tries to free the people of the area from the atrocities of Kasi, who is deliberately preventing them from becoming independent, so he may continue to dominate the area. Arivu succeeds in turning the people of the area against Kasi, thus destroying his support.

Later, Arivu joins a leading FMCG company Saffron and joins its sales department under Stella Bruce (Thambi Ramaiah). He also manages to bring his friend Bhagya (Vijay Vasanth) out of Kasi's gang and gets him a job in Saffron. He meets Aadhi (Fahadh Faasil), the Saffron's brand manager, who teaches him how to progress by doing smart work, and Arivu considers him his inspiration. On the night of April 1, Kasi and his gang attack Bhagya and stab him in Saffron's warehouse, whereupon he dies in Arivu's hands. Arivu, filled with rage, tries to attack Kasi. But Kasi's rival Doss (Sharath Lohitashwa) attacks and brutally stabs him in retaliation for their previous encounter, and Arivu admonishes Kasi for being a paid henchman. Kasi reveals to Arivu he killed Bhagya on a contract given by Jayaram (Anish Kuruvilla), the President of Saffron company, due to the fact that Bhagya tries to help Kasthuri (Sneha), who files a case claiming Saffron's products to be adulterated, due to which she had lost her son. Arivu is addressed by Kasi as being a worse hitman than he himself is. Arivu then saves Kasi. Kasi tells Arivu that all the products manufactured by this company are adulterated. Arivu takes up a mission to fight such malpractices not only in Saffron, but also in all the other 5 major food companies, including the company owned by Madhav Kurup (Mahesh Manjrekar). Arivu shares all of his plans with Aadhi. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Aadhi is actually Adhiban Madhav and he is Madhav's son. He joined Saffron to know their trade secrets and merge the company with his father's company.

Arivu manages to convince his company's staff to manufacture products as per government regulations for 2 days, while he convinces the staff of the other companies to wear a kerchief on their dresses for the next two days, thus tricking the owners into believing their workers have turned against them. But Aadhi manages to foil Arivu's plan and coerces the other owners to write over the major shares of their company to Madhav, thus making him the deciding authority of all their companies. Aadhi manages to turn all the employees against Arivu by tricking them into believing Arivu worked as a spy for Madhav. Stella then slaps Arivu and humiliates him, while Aadhi pretends to defend Arivu claiming he is innocent and it is the new president who conspired all these. After this, Arivu reveals to Aadhi that Stella was his ally and he now knows that Aadhi is the true traitor. Aadhi then burns down the godown containing the unadulterated products and reveals to Arivu that he is Madhav's son and that he will be the next CEO of the company. He also convinces the staff through his clever tactics and makes them propose his name as the new CEO, also revealing to Arivu that he will make them manufacture adulterated products without their knowledge, now that he command their loyalty, trust, and support.

Arivu goes to the Radio Mirchi radio station on the same day, which a night before May 1 and reveals that after the fire accident, one of the injured department heads of Saffron Karpaga Vinayagam (Ramdoss) called him into the ambulance and told him that he followed the regulations on the third day too. Arivu also got to know from the other team workers of Saffron Kennedy (Mansoor Ali Khan), Vinoth (Kaali Venkat), Ansari (Aruldoss) and Sivaranjani (Vinodhini Vaidyanathan) that after manufacturing quality products for 2 days, they could not bring themselves to manufacture adulterated products on the next day, and they all followed government regulations, thus manufacturing quality products on the next day too. Aadhi, now the CEO, hears the workers say that they will rebel against him and depose him if tries to revert to manufacturing adulterated products. Arivu adds that the loyalty of all the employees in each and every field shouldn't be wasted by showing it towards unethical employers. Aadhi vents out his frustration on the permanent failure of his plan.

All the people in the city show their support to Arivu, who celebrates his success with his love interest Mrinalini (Nayanthara), friends, family, the people of his slum, and the people of the city as the movie ends.

Cast

Production

In December 2016, an official press announcement from producer R. D. Raja revealed that director Mohan Raja and Sivakarthikeyan would collaborate for his second production venture.^[3][4] A launch event for the film was held on 11 March 2017, with the team announcing their intentions of starting the shoot in late 2016. Nayanthara signed the film in April 2017, while Malayalam actor Fahadh Faasil was also brought in to appear in a pivotal role in the film, marking his debut in Tamil cinema.^[5][6] Prior to the start of shoot, several actors were finalised for supporting roles including Sneha, Prakash Raj, Rohini and Thambi Ramaiah.^{[7][8][9][10]} RJ Balaji, Sathish also joined the cast in mid-early-.^[11]

Anirudh Ravichander, Vivek Harshan and T. Muthuraj joined the team as the music composer, editor and art director respectively. Likewise Anal Arasu was selected as the stunt choreographer, while Vishnu Govind and Sree Shankar were put in charge of sound editing and mixing.^[12] In a turn of events, editor Ruben replaces Vivek Harshan, which is evident on the latest film poster released for Deepavali season.^[13]

The film began production untitled on 11 January 2017 in T Nagar, Chennai and shot in the area for up to a month.^[14] The shoot continued throughout January at Prasad Studios in Chennai where art director Muthuraj had erected a large set resembling Chennai's slums.^[15] In February 2017, it was reported that the film was developing under the title of Velaikkaran, after the team had bought the rights of the title from Vijay Vasanth who had registered it for a future film.^[16] Following 35 days of shoot, the team moved to Malaysia to continue filming. ^[17] Some important portions and climax are to be shot in Malaysia.^[18] It's reported that Fahadh Faasil is to dub himself for the first time in Tamil in this movie.^[19]

Music

The soundtrack and background music of this film are scored by Anirudh Ravichander who also scored for Siva Karthikeyan's previous film 'Remo' which was also produced by 24 AM studios. Velaikkaran is the 17th film as solo composer for Anirudh and 6th film along with Sivakarthikeyan.^[20]

Release

On the first day of the film's shoot, the producer R. D. Raja revealed that the film would have a theatrical release on 29 September 2017 (Pooja Holidays).^[21] In April 2017, the production house has announced that the release date is postponed to 29 October 2017. Due to delays in post production the film's release date was shifted to 22 December 2017. It is reported that STAR Vijay has acquired the satellite rights of this movie.^[22]

References

External links

• Velaikkaran on IMDb