Polladhavan (2007 film)

Prabhu (Dhanush) is a happy-go-lucky middle-class family guy who spends time playing carrom. He and his father (Murali) fall into minor misunderstandings, and he indulges in a romance with Hema (Divya Spandana). When Prabhu is caught in stealing a pittance from his father for booze with his friends, he questions his father's responsibility towards his upbringing. His father gives Prabhu some of his savings and tells him to do something with his life. Prabhu purchases a Bajaj Pulsar bike and finds a job. The bike saves his life from a freak incident and later gets lost. When his family members ask him about his bike, he tells them that he has given it for dealer service.

Prabhu witnesses a murder planned by a gang led by a don Selvam (Kishore) and his accomplices. Prabhu finds out that his bike was stolen by a bike thief (Sendrayan) who turns out to be in connection with Selvam's brother Ravi (Daniel Balaji). Prabhu finds the culprit and hands him to the police. Prabhu later confesses to his family that his bike was stolen. The next morning, Ravi visits Prabhu's residence and threatens him to withdraw the complaint against the culprit. When Prabhu refuses, a fight breaks between Prabhu and Ravi where Ravi is joined by a few of his accomplices, but Prabhu fights them and leaves Ravi beaten and embarrassed. Selvam returns home, and when he finds out what happened to Ravi, he sends his henchmen to kill Prabhu. Prabhu tells the truth to Selvam, who refuses to believe that Ravi and his men stole his bike. After hearing from his ally Out (Pawan), Selvam believes Prabhu, apologizes for what happened, and promises Prabhu he will do whatever he can to get his bike back. It was too late for Prabhu's father, who receives the attack from Ravi's men and gets admitted in a hospital. Selvam, Ravi, and their men visit Prabhu to apologize for what happened. Prabhu turns down the apology, and a fight was about to break between Prabhu and Ravi before Selvam separates them. Although Prabhu wants to stay away, he gets dragged into rubbing shoulders with criminals who target his family to seek revenge.

Prabhu's bike was caught by Anti-Narcotics wing police as they think he is smuggling drugs, but they release him soon after. Prabhu learns that Ravi smuggled drugs in his bike. He loses his job and gets despair from Hema's father (Boys Rajan). Selvam warns Ravi to quit smuggling if he ever gets in Prabhu's business, and Ravi accuses Selvam of being a non-caring brother. The next day, Selvam and Ravi get attacked by gangsters. Selvam asks Ravi to stay back while he handles the killers. Suddenly, he gets stabbed by Ravi and dies. Ravi creates a scene among Selvam's associates that he is not aware of who launched the assault on Selvam. Soon after, Prabhu gets his bike back. He saves his family and Hema. Prabhu finds Ravi hiding in an ice factory. They engage in a fight, where Prabhu gets Ravi under a knife, threatening him to ask his men to leave Prabhu's family, and Ravi does so. Prabhu then fatally knocks down Ravi with a steel rod. The movie ends with Prabhu leaving on his bike.

Vetrimaaran who earlier worked as an assistant to Balu Mahendra, prepared a script for Dhanush, who was the lead hero of the films he worked in, and Dhanush immediately accepted the offer after hearing the story. The film titled Desiya Nedunchalai 47 was initially launched with Yuvan Shankar Raja as the music director and Ekambaram as the cinematographer.[1] After he found trouble finding producers with A. M. Rathnam 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 Kasthuri Raja finally agreed to produce the film and Kirat Bhattal was signed as heroine, while Harris Jayaraj 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 Thiruvilayadal Arambam.[2] The film's collapse saw Vetrimaaran approach producer Kadiresan and narrated to him the stories he had prepared but the producer did not like Desiya Nedunchaalai 47, but agreed to work on another project titled Polladhavan.

Vetrimaaran has since described that he had "ample time" for his production works of Polladhavan as "Dhanush had confidence in him". Production designer Durai helped him rope in G. V. Prakash Kumar to score the film's music, while Dhanush also recommended cinematographer Velraj to Vetrimaaran after the pair had worked together in Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram.[2] Vetrimaaran chose Kannada language actor Kishore to make his Tamil film debut after his assistant gave him rave reviews of the actor's performance in the unfinished Prashanth-starrer Petrol. The team held test shoots with both Kajal Aggarwal and Poonam Bajwa for the film and released the stills to the media, but Vetrimaaran was still unsatisfied and finished two schedules before finalising on Divya Spandana. The director revealed that there was initially an issue with the actress after she got offended by his words and did not come for the shoot for three days, before Durai intervened.[2] The film's story was inspired partly by the lost bike of his friend Andrew and the variety of experiences he had tracking down his vehicle. Vetrimaaran revealed that when he wrote the script, he made many changes to suit the visual medium and for Dhanush on his physical attributes while playing an action hero.[2] When questioned about its relevance to Bicycle Thieves, he stated that it "is a disgrace to Bicycle Thieves if it is compared with Polladhavan".[3][4]

The critic from Sify.com stating that "Vetri has made his mentor proud, and his style of narration and takings are very similar to the ace director "Balu Mahendra".[5] The reviewer from The Hindu stated that "at no point does Polladhavan sag and that writer-director Vetrimaran has slogged through his screenplay and the result shows."[6] Nowrunning wrote:"'Polladavan' is a typical Dhanush flick, which is not even distantly related to Rajinikanth's "Polladavan." The script is obviously tailor-made for Dhanush but it is no different from gangster movies, which make audiences feel jaded".[7]

• The movie received four Vijay Awards,[8] including one for Best Director.[9]

Polladhavan was remade in Kannada as Punda and in Telugu as Kurradu starring Varun Sandesh but it could not repeat the success of the original version.[10] It was remade in Sinhala as Pravegeya.This film was also remade in Bengali film Borbaad (2014) directed by Raj Chakraborty with debutant Bonny Senguta and Rittika sen and in Hindi as Guns of Banaras (2020).[11]

The soundtrack consisted of five song, three of them composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, while rapper Yogi B and Dhina composed each one track. The song Engeyum Eppodhum is a remix of the same-titled song from the 1979 film Ninaithale Inikkum.[12] Responding to allegations that the song Minnalgall Koothadum was a rip-off of Akon's Smack That, Prakash Kumar stated "I may have been inspired but I did not just copy that song".[13]

• Polladhavan on IMDb