''Sethurama Iyer CBI'' is a 2004 Indian

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

-language mystery

crime film Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...

directed by K. Madhu and written by S. N. Swamy. It stars

Mammootty Muhammad Kutty Panaparambil Ismail (born 7 September 1951), known mononymously by the hypocorism Mammootty (), is an Indian actor and film producer who works predominantly in Malayalam-language films. He has also appeared in Tamil, Telugu, ...

in the title role, alongside Mukesh and

Jagathy Sreekumar Sreekumar Achary (born 5 January 1951), better known by his stage name Jagathy Sreekumar or simply Jagathy, is an Indian actor, director and playback singer, who has appeared in over 1500 Malayalam films in a career spanning almost four deca ...

in supporting roles. Shyam composed the background score for the film. The film is the third installment in the '' CBI film series'', featuring Mammootty as CBI officer Sethurama Iyer. The film was a blockbuster and was the highest-grossing film of the year collecting around distributors share of ₹4 crore and a gross around ₹16 crore. The success of the film made Mammootty "Man of the year". The base story and initial scenes are adopted from Arthur Hailey's novel ''Detective''. Some of the scenes of the film are also loosely based on the 2001 Aluva massacre.

Plot

The movie begins with Sethurama Iyer visiting Isow Alex, a convicted serial killer who is awaiting his execution. Alex was arrested and convicted for the cold-blooded murder of seven people in two different families, unrelated to each other, on the same night. Alex, who had been living a wild life then, had committed the crime high on narcotic drugs. The murder case was left to the CBI for investigation and an able officer, Balagopal, nabbed Alex in no time. Alex is now a new man, mainly due to the influence of a priest, who requests Iyer to visit Alex. What Alex tells Iyer is startling; he didn't commit one of the seven murders he was convicted for. The murder was that of Manikkunju, a businessman. Manikkunju, along with his daughter-in-law Mosi, was murdered at his house. Alex tells this all the same confessing that he murdered Mosi. The possibility of another killer involved is very remote and Alex is a serial killer who thoroughly denied any hand in the murders when he was arrested, but yet Iyer decides to reopen the case and investigate. He faces many odds; to prove Alex right would be proving his own bureau wrong and to prove Alex wrong would be wasting time and money.

Cast

Production

Originally, the CBI officer in the film ''Oru CBI Diary Kuruppu'' was supposed to be a rough-and-tough cop named Ali Imran. It was Mammootty who suggested that a simple-looking

brahmin Brahmin (; ) is a ''Varna (Hinduism), varna'' (theoretical social classes) within Hindu society. The other three varnas are the ''Kshatriya'' (rulers and warriors), ''Vaishya'' (traders, merchants, and farmers), and ''Shudra'' (labourers). Th ...

who uses his brains more than his brawn would be a better idea.

Box office

The film was commercial success and became highest grossing Malayalam film of the year 2004 and also collected around ₹16 crore from the box office. The film ran around 200 days in theatres.

References

External links