''Thotta'' () is a 2008 Indian
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
People, culture and language
* Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka
** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...
-language
gangster film
A gangster film or gangster movie is a film belonging to a genre that focuses on gangs and organized crime. It is a subgenre of crime film, that may involve large criminal organizations, or small gangs formed to perform certain illegal acts. The ...
directed by
Selva
Selva may refer to:
People
*Selva (surname)
*Selva (name)
*Selva (actor), Indian actor
*Selva (director), Indian director
Places
*Selva (comarca), a coastal comarca (county) in Catalonia, Spain
*Selva, Mallorca (pop. 3,055), a municipality on Mal ...
and produced by Mariappa Babu Baskar of Oscar Movies. The film stars
Jeevan and
Priyamani alongside
Mallika,
Sampath Raj
Sampath Raj (born 25 December 1968) is an Indian actor who works predominantly in Tamil and Telugu films, in addition to Kannada and Malayalam films.
He is best known for his appearances in director Venkat Prabhu's trilogy, which includ ...
,
Hema Chaudhary
Durga Prabha, known by her stage name, Hema Chowdari is an Indian actress who has predominantly acted in Kannada cinema, Kannada, Telugu cinema, Telugu, Malayalam cinema, Malayalam and Tamil cinema, Tamil films. Starting her career as a lead ac ...
and
Charan Raj
Charan Rajkumar is an Indian actor, director, film producer, and writer who works in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Odia and Hindi films.
Career
Charan Raj is a versatile actor who is popular for his villainy and character roles in South ...
in supporting roles.
Plot
Shanmugham comes to Chennai with his mother in search of his father. When they get to the place, they see him living with another wife. He kills the wife and sends Shanmugham outside. Shanmugham comes out with his dead mother, and an auto driver helps him cremate the body, gives money to him, and asks him to go back to his own city.
Shanmugham wanted to become a great man but got caught with corrupt police officers and was used for their job. When he grows up, he becomes a big rowdy by the name of ''Thotta''. The highly corrupt police officer DCP Muthuvel also uses him for a lot of encounters, for which he takes credit and gets promoted to commissioner. In one incident where he is asked to put acid on a girl Nalina's face, he finds that girl to be the auto driver's daughter. He loves Nalina and helps her family.
Nalina's aim is to become a police officer, and she tells this to Shanmugham. As he has commissioner influence, he promises to get her the job. For this, he kills a minister, who is a big rival of Chief Minister Manimaran (
Livingston). When Nalina goes to Muthuvel for the job, the latter insists that she have sex with him. When Shanmugham finds out what happened, he and Muthuvel part ways.
Shanmugham's friend Giri (
Vishnupriyan
Vishnupriyan is an Indian actor, who has appeared in lead roles in Tamil language films.
Career
Vishnupriyan made his acting debut in Adoor Gopalakrishnan's Malayalam film ''Nizhalkuthu'' (2002), and has since portrayed leading and supporting r ...
), who is also a rowdy, but gets him married to Gauri (
Mallika). She wants to separate him from this rowdy group and get settled, for which she tries not to send him for their encounters. After much thought, Shanmugham lets them go separately, but Muthuvel kills Giri. CBI officer Prabhakar (
Charan Raj
Charan Rajkumar is an Indian actor, director, film producer, and writer who works in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Odia and Hindi films.
Career
Charan Raj is a versatile actor who is popular for his villainy and character roles in South ...
) wants to get Shanmugham alive, whereas Muthuvel wants him killed, otherwise he would be in deep trouble as he was the one who made Shanmugham a rowdy. How Shanmugham overpowers this duo and whether Nalina becomes a police officer forms the climax of the story.
Cast
Production
The film began production in 2005. It was shelved midway and revived only in 2007.
Soundtrack
The film has 5 songs and one instrumental composed by
Srikanth Deva. Saraswathy Srinivas of ''
Rediff.com
Rediff.com, stylized as rediff.com, is an Indian news, information, entertainment, and shopping website. Founded by Ajit Balakrishnan in 1996, it was the first Indian website to become a mainstream news media organization. It is headquartered i ...
'' rated the album 2 out of 5, saying, "Srikanth Deva's music in ''Thotta'' just breezes past you with no lingering quality".
Critical reception
Nandhu Sundaram wrote for ''Rediff.com'', "Selva's singular failure is in infusing any emotion in the movie. The screenplay is a maze of twists and turns, none of them believable". ''
Sify
Sify Technologies Limited (formerly Satyam Infoway) is an Indian information and communications technology (ICT) company providing telecom services, data center services, cloud & managed services, transformation integration services, and ...
'' wrote, "This ''Thotta'' () just does not fire and is a rehash of so many films, and has nothing new to offer and is predictable".
Sudhish Kamath of ''
The Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the India ...
'' wrote, "Overall, ''Thotta'' is racy for most parts, sprinting through the motions we have seen a hundred times before and yet continue to see only because our heroes give us no choice. Only for the bored and the desperate".
References
External links
*
{{Selva (director)
2000s gangster films
2000s Indian films
2000s Tamil-language films
2008 films
Films directed by Selva (director)
Films scored by Srikanth Deva
Indian gangster films
Tamil-language Indian films