Vettaikaaran (2009 film)

Vettaikaaran (lit. 'Hunter') is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language action film directed by debutant B. Babusivan and produced by AVM Productions. The film stars Vijay and Anushka in the lead roles while Srihari, Salim Ghouse, Sayaji Shinde and Ravi Shankar played supporting roles. Gopinath handled cinematography while V. T. Vijayan was the film's editor. This was Vijay's first film with AVM Productions. The film was dubbed into Telugu as Puli Veta.[2]

For the 1964 film, see Vettaikaaran (1964 film).

Vettaikaaran
Theatrical release poster
Directed byB. Babusivan
Produced byM. Balasubramanian
Gurunath Meiyappan
Written byB. Babusivan
StarringVijay
Anushka
Sanchita Padukone
Salim Ghouse
Sathyan
Srihari
Music byVijay Antony
CinematographyGopinath
Edited byV. T. Vijayan
Production
company
Distributed bySun Pictures (India)
Ayngaran International(UK)
Thameens(Kerala)
FiveStar(Malaysia)
Sri Sai Ganesh Productions(Telugu)
Release date
  • 18 December 2009 (2009-12-18)
Running time
166 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageTamil
Budget₹29 crore[1]
Box office₹48 crore[1]

The film was a commercial success.[3] The story is a tale of unexpected events in the life of auto rickshaw driver due to conspiracy by a crime boss.

Plot

Ravi is a youth from Thoothukudi. He aspires to become a policeman like his role model, Encounter Specialist DCP Devaraj IPS. After completing his Twelfth standard in his fifth attempt, he joins a college in Chennai and also earns a living by driving an auto rickshaw. During the course, he meets Suseela, an IT professional and falls in love with her instantly. Although Suseela rejects Ravi's advances at first, with the help of her grandmother, Ravi succeeds in winning Suseela's heart.

Meanwhile, Chella, a rowdy and a womaniser, meets Ravi's friend Uma in a public place, where she is taking donations for some cause, and immediately develops an attraction to her. When Uma asks Chella to contribute money, he willingly donates, but violates her modesty by placing the money between her breasts. When Ravi finds out what had happened to Uma, he comes to her defense and beats up Chella, hospitalising him. His troubles start from there as Chella's father, a powerful don named Vedanayagam, with the help of his right-hand man, a corrupt police officer Kattabomman, begin to create havoc in Ravi's life. Ravi is soon thrown into jail on a false case of drug smuggling and is expelled from college. Only Suseela is willing to help him. She goes to Devaraj and pleads with him to help Ravi, but Devaraj initially refuses to help as his entire family had died at the hands of Vedanayagam and he himself was blinded by him because he had taken action against him and his gang. However, with the help of his henchmen, he saves Ravi from being killed in a fake encounter led by Kattabomman. It is at this stage that Ravi takes up a new persona called "Police" Ravi to clean up the illegal activities of Vedanayagam and instill hope in the public, something that Devaraj was unable to do.

In the process however, Vedanayagam kills Ravi's close friend Sugu, prompting Ravi to kill Chella in retribution. Vedanayagam decides soon after to become a minister to prevent Ravi from targeting him and his activities. As Ravi finally plans to kill the newly sworn-in minister Vedanayagam, the police arrive to arrest Ravi. However, Ravi sees Devaraj in the crowd and announces Vedanayagam's location to him just as he is being arrested, allowing Devaraj to assassinate Vedanayagam, effectively taking his revenge.

In the end, Devaraj is reinstated into the police force and offers to make Ravi a police officer. However, Ravi refuses, stating that he has found the police officer within himself and that is all he needs to succeed in life.

Cast

Production

Development

During the filming of Kuruvi, directed by S. Dharani, B. Babusivan served as one of his assistant directors in the film and wrote the dialogues. Sivan was later prompted to begin his maiden directorial venture with Vijay in the lead role. He was eventually chosen as the director for the next feature film to be produced AVM Productions. The project was originally titled as Police Ravi but in August 2008 it was re-titled as Vettaikkaaran, taken from the Vettaikaaran (1964 film) starring M. G. Ramachandran.[4]

Vettaikaran was formally launched the next month. The film's director Babusivan, producers M. Balasubramaniam and B. Gurunath Meyyappan, Vijay and his wife, Vijay Antony, S. A. Chandrasekhar and director Dharani were present at the film's inauguration.

Casting

Commercial directors Perarasu and Hari were mentioned, but AVM Productions chose B. Babusivan to be the director of the film.[5][6]

Several actresses were considered for the lead female role with Shriya Saran, Tamannaah, Ileana D'Cruz, Bhavana, Asin,[7] Nayantara and Anushka[8] being considered for the role. Afterwards, Anushka was finalized to portray the role. Cinematographer Gopinath was chosen to be the lead cameraman in the film after Ravi Varman was dropped from the film.[9] V. T. Vijayan was signed as the film's editor.

Filming

Vijay experimented with his look in two songs. In "Karigalan", the left half of his body is a man where the right half is a female. The look in Karigalan was suggested by Dinesh after he watched Aamir Khan in a Tata Sky advertisement. In "Oru Chinna Thamarai", Vijay sports a long hair wig. Regarding his long hair look, Vijay reveals that he "always wanted to" try long hair.[10]

Soundtrack
Vettaikaaran
Soundtrack album by
Vijay Antony
Released23 September 2009 (2009-09-23)
RecordedAudiophiles
GenreFeature film soundtrack
Length26:33
LabelSonyMusicSouthVEVO
Vijay Antony chronology
Mahatma
(2009)		 Vettaikaaran
(2009)		 Rasikkum Seemane
(2010)

Soundtrack was composed by Vijay Antony.

Tamil
No.SongSingersLength (m:ss)LyricsPicturization
1"Naan Adicha"Shankar Mahadevan4:37KabilanRajahmundry
2"Karigalan Kala"Suchith Suresan, Sangeetha Rajeshwaran4:17KabilanPollachchi
3"Puli Urumudhu"Ananthu, Mahesh Vinayakram4:17KabilanAVM Studio and Madurai
4"Oru Chinna Thamarai"Krish, Dinesh Kanagaratnam, Bonekilla, Suchitra4:35VivekaPunai
5"En Uchimandai"Krishna Iyer, Shoba Chandrasekhar, Charulatha Mani, Shakthisree Gopalan, Sunidhi Chauhan4:12AnnamalaiAVM

Telugu
No.SongSingersLength (m:ss)LyricsPicturization
1"Adugesthey"Tippu4:37VennelakanthiRajahmundry
2"Karimabbu"Saketh Naidu, Kavitha4:17VennelakanthiPollachchi
3"Pul Vetidi"Ramu4:17VennelakanthiAVM Studio and Madurai
4"Yeda Alapai"Rakhi, Veena4:35BhuvanachandraPunai
5"Thikkedo"R.S. John Vianni, Aishwarya4:12BhuvanachandraAVM Studio

Release

Critical reception

Sify gave the film a 4/5 star rating, and wrote the "major plus for the movie are the five peppy songs tuned by Vijay Antony which are choreographed well ... The action scenes by Kanal Kannan are superbly choreographed. Gopinath’s camera is slick and editing is fast-paced".[11] Behindwoods rated 2/5 and stated "The charismatic screen presence of Vijay, enjoyable musical tracks, sparkling stunts, fiery punch lines, the signature lighter moments and foot tapping numbers, makes the movie entertain the family audience, and stated that director B. Babusivan had made a wholesome family entertainer movie.[12] The Times of India gave 2.5 stars out of 5 criticising Babusivan for failing to properly tell the story in the second half.[13]

Awards
Award Category Recipient Result
Vijay Awards Favourite Hero Vijay Won
Favourite Heroine Anushka Won
Favourite Film Vettaikaran Nominated
Favourite Song Chinna Thamarai Won
Best Music Director Vijay Antony Nominated
Best Villain Salim Ghouse Nominated
Best Male Playback Singer Krish Nominated
Best Lyricist Kabilan Nominated
Best Stunt Director Kanal Kannan Nominated
Filmfare Awards South
Best Lyricist Kabilan
(Karikaalan)		 Nominated
Best Lyricist Vivega
(Oru Chinna Thamarai)		 Nominated
Best Male Playback Singer Krish
(Oru Chinna Thamarai)		 Nominated
Best Female Playback Singer Suchitra
(Oru Chinna Thamarai)		 Nominated
Edison Awards Best Male Playback Singer Krish Won
South Scope Cine Awards Best Tamil Male Play Back Singer Krish
(Oru Chinna Thamarai)		 Nominated
Best Tamil Female Playback Singer Suchitra
(Oru Chinna Thamarai)		 Nominated

References
  1. "Vettaikaaran". Indianmoviestats.
  2. https://www.indiaglitz.com/anushkas-puliveta-in-march-telugu-news-64220
  3. "Vettaikaaran declared as a hit in box office". Archived from the original on 21 February 2017.
  4. "Vijay to turn 'Vetaikkaaran' after loading 'Villu'". IndiaGlitz. Retrieved 2 March 2011.
  5. Karthick (25 February 2009). "Wishes to Babu Sivan, all the best in his first film". Naive Expressions.
  6. "‘Jeyam’ Raja to direct Vijay’s 50th flick". 2 February 2009.
  7. "Asin to act in Vijay's Vettaikkaran Movie". TamilWire. 2008. Retrieved 21 October 2009.
  8. "Anushka Vijay's Lady Love". TamilWire. 2008. Retrieved 28 December 2008.
  9. "Ravivarman dropped from Vettaikaran". Poochandi. 2009. Retrieved 16 February 2008.
  10. "Welcome to Sify.com". www.sify.com.
  11. Sify Movies – Review listing. Sify.com (2 December 2012). Retrieved on 18 April 2015.
  12. Vettaikaran – Tamil Movie Reviews – Vettaikaran Vijay Anushka Vijay Antony Babu Sivan. Behindwoods.com. Retrieved on 2015-04-18.
  13. Vettaikaran Movie Review, Trailer, & Show timings at Times of India. Timesofindia.indiatimes.com (20 December 2009). Retrieved on 18 April 2015.
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