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 (J. Livingston, 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), who is also a rowdy, but gets him married to Gauri (Mallika (actress), 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) 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'' 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'' 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'' 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