Naan (2012 film)

As a little boy, Karthik (Vijay Antony) is a brilliant student but already shows signs of criminal behavior, forging his friend's parent's signature on a mark sheet. Sent home from school early for this misdeed, Karthik is shocked to discover his mother (Charmila) in bed with his uncle. His mother begs him not to tell his father, but he does so, and his father commits suicide. Karthik's mother and uncle continue their relationship; Karthik then kills his mother and uncle by setting the house on fire. He is sent to a juvenile home where he grows up. On his release, the warden gives him the address of another of his uncles and asks him to concentrate on his studies.

Karthik's uncle and aunt are not interested in taking him in, so he goes to Chennai to start a new life. As fate would have it, the bus meets with an accident, and his co-passenger Salim (Saravanan) dies. Karthik steals Salim's documents, adopts his identity, and enrolls in a medical school. He develops friendships with a rich fellow-student named Ashok (Siddharth Venugopal), his girlfriend Rupa (Rupa Manjari), and their friend Suresh (Vijay Victor). Ashok allows Karthik to stay in his house rent-free. Later, Salim and Ashok encounter the warden from the juvenile home, who seems to recognize Karthik. However, since Karthik is now impersonating Salim, he picks a fight with the warden and swears that he is not Karthik. This incident causes Ashok to doubt his friend's identity.

One day, Ashok and Suresh plan to go to a farmhouse without Rupa. Suresh suggests that they take some other girls along. Salim lets Rupa know of this plan. Rupa starts to suspect Ashok's fidelity, and Ashok worries that Salim betrayed him to Rupa. Ashok slaps Salim and asks him to get out of his place. Salim, seeing no other way, apologizes to him and looks for another lodging.

Ashok is still full of suspicion. While Salim is showering, Ashok opens Salim's briefcase. He finds a photo of Salim's real-life father and realizes that it is a different man from the one that Salim had introduced as his father earlier. Suddenly, Salim enters the room and asks Ashok to give back the photo. Ashok refuses, removes Salim's towel, and confirms that he is not a Muslim, as he was not circumcised. Salim gets angry and pushes Ashok; Ashok hits his head on a table and dies. At first, Salim is shocked by this unexpected accident, but he then covers up the murder so intelligently that no one ever finds out that Ashok is dead. When a family friend of Ashok's, who has seen Ashok only in his childhood, plans to meet him, he successfully impersonates Ashok in front of Ashok's own parents and Rupa.

Suresh, however, discovers Salim's deception. Salim then kills Suresh and buries him. The following day, the police come and reveal that they have found Suresh's corpse. They interrogate several people in the community including Salim, but they cannot find the truth. They conclude that Ashok killed Suresh and then absconded; meanwhile, they consider Karthik (now back to impersonating Salim) an innocent student. Karthik continues to live as Salim, after seeking permission from Salim's father and promises to take care of him. The film ends with the tagline "To Be Continued", which hints at a sequel.

• Vijay Antony as Karthik (Mohammed Salim)
• Siddharth Venugopal as Ashok Ravindran
• Rupa Manjari as Rupa
• Anuya Bhagvath as Priya
• Vibha Natarajan as Uma
• Charmila as Karthik's mother
• Sheela Rajkumar
• Saravanan as Mohammed Salim
• Vijay Victor as Suresh
• Pramod as Inspector Duraipandiyan
• Krishnamoorthy

The film was initially launched in 2008, with Siddharth Venugopal and Rukmini Vijayakumar playing the lead roles, however, due to the failure of his previous film Ananda Thandavam, the producer Oscar Ravichandran called off the project.[2] The film restarted with Vijay Antony's intervention in December 2010 who also took the lead role from Siddharth.

The soundtrack has six tracks, composed by Vijay Antony himself. Following Yuvan Shankar Raja, who created single tracks in Vaanam and Mankatha, Vijay Antony too released a single track "Makkayala Makkayala" in June 2011. All the songs in the album are composed by Vijay Antony.[3]

A sequel to the movie was released in August 2014 by the name Salim. In March 2014, it was reported that the film would be remade in Hindi with Prashanth in the lead role. Despite a production delay, Thiagarajan confirmed during an interview that the film would be made in February 2017.[14][15]

• Official website
• Naan on IMDb