Thani Oruvan

Mithran is going to come first out of the police academy and his friends ask what he intends to do. His answer is odd: to catch a criminal nobody has caught. He is not interested in the criminal on the street; he thinks the real one is behind it, orderly and respectable. He searches for years. Finally he finds him. Siddharth Abhimanyu is a scientist and a businessman; he has pharmaceutical companies, connections in politics, and everyone knows him well. Mithran goes to him and says it to his face: I will catch you. The man laughs. A contest of wits begins between them and neither steps back. Mohan Raja directs. Ravi Mohan plays Mithran and Arvind Swamy plays Siddharth; Nayanthara is in the cast. The language is Tamil. Arvind Swamy returned to Tamil cinema with this film after a long absence and the part opened the second period of his career. Its premise is the reverse of the usual; the villain is not stupid and is a step ahead of the hero in most scenes. The matter it treats is abuse in medicine and pharmaceuticals; the narrative builds it on one concrete fraud. The film was a box office success in Tamil cinema and was remade in other languages. The narrative keeps its action scenes few; the conflict runs mostly through talk. Its limit is length; the narrative is too long, the romantic section unnecessary, and the ending overblown. Who it is for: viewers who like Tamil cinema and thrillers built as a duel of wits. Who it is not for: it is long, the interludes scatter it, and the ending is too clean.