Gentleman (1993 film)

In Ooty, Krishnamoorthy alias Kicha (Arjun) and Mani (Goundamani) perform a swashbuckling heist of money of several crores while being in disguise diverting the attention of police, and escape in Nilgiri Mountain Railway, much to the frustration of a chasing police officer named Ratnam (Ajay Rathnam).

Kicha is a respected citizen who runs a home-based pappadam business along with Mani in Chennai. Susheela (Madhoo), one of Kicha's many female employees, has a crush on him and is constantly demanding his attention. Another thing adding to her woes is the arrival of her jovial cousin Sugandhi (Subhashri). She makes the place so lively and playful with silly fights between Mani and Babloo (Senthil). Sugandhi later develops a crush on Kicha, especially after being saved by him from some molesting goons. Kicha tells to her that he has no such feelings for her and wants her to find a suitable mate. Before leaving Chennai, Sugandhi steals Kicha's ring as a souvenir.

After several unsuccessful attempts at nabbing the thief, a disgraced Azhagar Nambi (Charan Raj) shaves his head and is left with a ring mark on his face, after a scuffle with the thief. On investigating, he later realizes that the mark was formed by a ceremonial ring worn by Brahmin priests, but to his vain, finds that the specific design of this ring is uncommon to Brahmin priests, but rather resembles a mangalsutra. Nambi is forced by his parents into getting married and by coincidence to Sugandhi, from whom he gets the particular ring that he was tracking and finds out that it belongs to Kicha. In an attempt to trap and arrest Kicha, Nambi plots an attempt at Kicha's house where they were invited for a wedding dinner, hosted by Kicha, where he shoots Kicha, but the latter narrowly escapes with a bullet injury in his hand, along with Mani. Susheela follows them to their hideout, where Susheela finds the duo and accuses Kicha for his deed.

After Susheela threatens to commit suicide, Kicha reveals his flashback about his student life as a district level topper along with his best friend Ramesh (Vineeth), and when they both were denied their desired medical college seats due to bribery, that leads to the tragic suicides of Kicha's mother Ponnamal (Manorama) and Ramesh. Since then, Kicha became a thief to build a college of his own, where he desires to make education available to the deserved without any difference to poor, rich, or any caste.

In order to fund the final stages of the college building, aware of the police trap, Kicha makes one last attempt to steal money from the Chief Minister (Rajan P. Dev), resulting in success, but Nambi gains the upper hand in arresting him. In the courtroom, Kicha demands that the State CM should come to the courtroom, who was previously educational minister demanded the bribe from him. Though the CM is exposed to the public, he is still let off, which infuriates a youth who was inspired by Kicha's ideologies. The youth kills the minister by planting a bomb on himself.

During the end credits, it is shown that Kicha serves his jail sentence and subsequently inaugurates the medical college for the poor students after his release.

Special appearances in "Chikku Bukku Rayile" song

• Prabhu Deva
• Gouthami Tadimalla
• Raju Sundaram
• Raghava Lawrence

After scoring back-to-back successes like Vasanthakala Paravai (1991) and Suriyan (1992), producer K. T. Kunjumon wanted to collaborate again with director Pavithran and actor R. Sarathkumar; however since they went on to do other projects, the collaboration did not happen. Photographer Stills Ravi and editor V. T. Vijayan suggested the name of S. Shankar who worked as an assistant in these two films. Impressed with Shankar's story, he decided to produce the film, Gentleman.[5] Arjun Sarja was selected to portray the lead role after attempts to sign Sarathkumar failed.[5][2] Even Arjun was initially reluctant. According to him, no filmmakers were ready to make a film with him until the release of Sevagan (1992) which was directed by Arjun himself. Therefore when Shankar approached him with the script of Gentleman, he decided to say a "No" after listening to the script just as he did to a few other directors. But he was impressed by the story and hence decided to do it.[6] The climax scene where a student sacrifices his life by killing the film's antagonist was inspired from the assassination of Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa.[5][7] Kunjumon insisted Shankar to rewrite the climax by adding this element, much to the dissatisfaction of Arjun, who felt that his heroism would get diluted. However, Kunjumon was adamant about the climax and it was shot as per his wish.[5]

The score and soundtrack of the movie was composed by A. R. Rahman and lyrics by Vairamuthu and Vaali.[8] Gentleman marked the beginning of a famed collaboration between A. R. Rahman and director S. Shankar. The film and soundtrack were dubbed and released in Telugu with the same name. The lyrics were penned by Rajashri for this version.[9]

The choreography was done by Prabhu Deva, who also made an appearance in the song "Chikku Bukku Rayile", written by Vaali.

The soundtrack earned A. R. Rahman, his second Filmfare Best Music Director Award of the year 1993. He also won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director for his work. Sujatha got the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Female Playback for her rendition of the track "En Veettu Thotathil".

A Gentleman instrumental adaptation album was subsequently released on Lahari and became a runaway success. The track "Ottagathai Kattiko" soundtracked a BBC fashion show. The song is based on Carnatic rāgam Dharmavati.[10] The song "Paakathe" is based on Mohanam raga.[11]

41st Filmfare Awards South

• Best Film – K. T. Kunjumon
• Best Director – Shankar
• Best Music Director – A. R. Rahman

1993 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards

• Best Actor – Arjun Sarja
• Best Director – Shankar
• Best Music Director – A. R. Rahman
• Best Female Playback Singer – Sujatha – "En Veetu Thotathil"

Kunjumon had to distribute the film on his own since no distributors were willing to buy this film as they felt "it looked like a dubbed film".[5] The film was released on 30 July 1993 and became a blockbuster at the box office.[5]

New Straits Times in its review dated 14 August 1993 stated: "Sankar .. has provided thought-provoking story [..] build up the story well, making us eager to find out why the hero is committing all those robberies."[2] Writing for The Indian Express, Malini Mannath said, "Shankar makes a promising debut infusing his script with action, sentiment, comedy and even some titillating scenes for added measure and tries to give something different within the parameters of commercial cinema. Jeeva's camera is effective in capturing the well choreographed stunt scenes (Vikram Dharma)."[12]

In the 2019 Tamil film Hero, Arjun reprises his role as Sathyamoorthy (whose name is similar to Krishnamoorthy), a man who takes away money from the rich to build a school that is free for everyone.[13]

• Gentleman on IMDb
• Gentleman at Rotten Tomatoes