Vettai

For the Singaporean Tamil series, seeVettai (TV series).

Vettai
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	N. Linguswamy
Dialogues by	Brinda Sarathy
Screenplay by	N. Linguswamy
Story by	N. Linguswamy
Produced by	N. Subash Chandra Bose Ronnie Screwvala N. Linguswamy Siddharth Roy Kapur
Starring	Arya R.Madhavan Sameera Reddy Amala Paul
Cinematography	Nirav Shah
Edited by	Anthony
Music by	Yuvan Shankar Raja
Production companies	Thirupathi Brothers UTV Motion Pictures
Distributed by	UTV Motion Pictures Vendhar Movies
Release date	14 January 2012(2012-01-14)
Running time	168 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Vettai(transl. Hunt) is a 2012 IndianTamil-languageaction filmco-produced, written and directed byN. Linguswamy.The film starsAryaandR. Madhavanin the lead roles, whileSameera Reddy,Amala Paul,Ashutosh Rana,NassarandThambi Ramaiahappear in supporting roles.The music was composed byYuvan Shankar Raja,and cinematography and editing handled byNirav ShahandAnthony.

The film was announced shortly after the release of Lingusamy'sPaiyaa,withDhayanidhi Alagiri'sCloud Nine Moviesagreeing to produce the film, following a successful collaboration during the director's previous film.During a lengthy pre-production phase, the film underwent changes in its main cast and Cloud Nine Movies pulled out of the project. Linguswamy's own bannerThirupathi Brotherstakes up the film.Filming was initially planned to begin by mid-2010, but was delayed until March 2011.

Vettaiwas released on 14 January 2012, coinciding withPongalfestival, and became a commercial success at the box office. The film was remade inTeluguasTadakha(2013), inBengaliasHitman(2014) and inHindiasBaaghi 3(2020).

Plot

Thirumurthy and Gurumurthy are two brothers inThoothukudi,with Thirumurthy, being sensitive to violence, in contrast to Gurumurthy, who is brave and clever. Whenever Thirumurthy is thrashed by anyone, he sends Gurumurthy to finish them. However, Gurumurthy is frequently berated by his father Lingamurthy, a police officer for beating local people, while Thirumurthy only feels for him.

After the death of Lingamurthy, Thirumurthy takes on the same police job by the request of Gurumurthy, who remains an unemployed youngster. Thirumurthy is posted asSIin Thoothukudi. Meanwhile, Thirumurthy and Gurumurthy meets two sisters Vasanthi and Jayanthi. Vasanthi had an issue at Gurumurthy at first but later they broke the ice. Afterwards, Thirumurthy marries Vasanthi, and both the brothers shift to Vasanthi's and Jayanthi's house. A number of humorous incidents follow, such as Jayanthi's to-be husband is actually revealed to be a clumsyNRInamed Gautham, whom she disapproves. She openly expresses her love for Gurumurthy, who accepts.

Thirumurthy rises to fame in his job by having Gurumurthy secretly punish suspects and save victims for him. Everyone believes that Thirumurthy actually fought the criminals himself, but in reality, he took credit for Gurumurthy's doings, unknown to them. One of the village's biggest mob Boss es, Annachi, discovers the truth via aCCTVshowing Gurumurthy. Enraged, he has his men severely beat up Thirumurthy, making the latter confident that his brother will continue his job. Gurumurthy proclaims that he made Thirumurthy as a policeman to overcome his fears and become stronger. Following his recovery, Thirumurthy begins training under Gurumurthy and subsequently overcomes his fear and manages to defeat a few of Annachi's men and tactically, with Gurumurthy's help, kill Maari, the goon responsible for beating him up.

Eventually, Annachi and his men break into the brothers's house and cause havoc. Thirumurthy and Gurumurthy arrive and defeat all of Annachi's men; however, they are unable to beat Annachi. Gurumurthy wants to kill Annachi but Thirumurthy wants to arrest him. The two brothers quarrel on whether to kill or arrest him. Gurumurthy declares that they will roll the gun; if the stops at Annachi, he will be killed. The gun stops rolling at Annachi and when he tries to grab the gun, Gurumurthy stops him by kicking him, and Thirumurthy shoots him dead.

Thirumurthy is again congratulated by the local police, but gives equal credit to Gurumurthy as well. Through this praise, Gurumurthy also gets to join the police force.

Cast

As per the film's opening credits:

• Aryaas Gurumurthy, Thirumurthy's brother
• R. MadhavanasInspectorK. Thirumurthy, Gurumurthy's brother
• Sameera Reddyas Vasanthi, Thirumurthy's wife (Voice dubbed byChinmayi)
• Amala Paulas L. Jayanthi, Gurumurthy's wife (Voice dubbed bySavitha Reddy)
• Ashutosh Ranaas Annachi (Voice dubbed byThalaivaasal Vijay)
• NassarasSPVeerapandiyan ThevarIPS
• Thambi RamaiahasConstableB. Azhagu
• Soundararajaas Madura
• ShanmugarajanasInspectorKulasekara Pandian
• Sreejith Ravias Surulai
• Nagendra Babuas Lingamurthy, Gurumurthy's and Thirumurthy's father
• Rajeev Ravindranathanas Gautham
• Naadodigal Gopalas Police officer
• Muthukumar as Maari
• N. Linguswamyas a man smoking cigarette (cameo appearance)

Archival footage

• Jiivaas Ashwin (fromKoin the film) (cameo appearance)
• Ajith KumarasACPVinayak Mahadevan (fromMankathain the film) (cameo appearance)

Production

Development

In April 2010, following the success ofPaiyaa,Cloud Nine Movies,who had distributed the film, announced a successive collaboration with the film's directorN. Linguswamy,who would make a romantic action film withSilambarasanin the lead role.For pre-production works, the crew of the team subsequently headed toMacauto work out the script,following which Lingusamy moved to the Orange County resort inCoorg,Karnataka to finalise the script.Later that month a photo shoot was completed, with Silambarsan sporting the get up of anNCC cadet,However, in July 2010, reports suggested that Silambarasan was dropped from the project, since he suddenly, without informing Lingusamy and Dhayanidhi, signed himself up and began working inVaanam(2011).Silambarasan, in return, revealed that he had not officially signed Cloud Nine Pictures' film, and only decided to work onVaanam,since Lingusamy was not able to narrate the complete script, despite making him wait for over 100 days.Controversially, Silambarasan later signed another film in September 2010, which was similarly titled asVettai Mannan.

Eventually in September 2010, the film was official announced at a press meet with the titleVettai,withAryareplacing Silambarasan. At the press meet, he revealed that he worked for over three months on the script, keeping his editorAnthony Gonsalvezand cinematographerNirav Shahupdated about the developments.The film's principal photography was initially supposed to commence in June 2010,but due to pre-production works, it got delayed further and was postponed to December.The film was announced as a bilingual project, to be shot separately in Tamil and Telugu. The Telugu version was supposed to be produced by Tirupati Prasad of Mega Supergood Films and featureMahesh Babuin the lead role,with Madhavan reprising his role.In March 2011, Cloud Nine Movies stepped out of the project, which prompted Linguswamy to produceVettai,too, under his home bannerThirupathi Brothersalong with his brotherSubash Chandra Bose.

Casting

After Silambarasan's exit,Vijaywas expected to enact the lead role, who had earlier agreed to star in a Lingusamy film in future,and was subsequently approached by the team.He, however, declined the offer, not willing to play a role that was "originally written keeping in mind the image of another actor".Only in September 2010, during the official announcement, it became apparent thatAryawas signed on to reprise the lead role. Furthermore, Linguswamy was trying to signMadhavanfor another leading role, while, several days later, sources reported that Madhavan definitely had rejected the offer.The next month, however, it was confirmed that Madhavan was roped in to enact the role as a police officer and brother of Arya's character.Madhavan accepted the film as he was 'blown' away by the story.

The lead female role was reported to be played byTamannaah Bhatia,who had been part of Linguswamy'sPaiyaaas well. In an interview later, she disclosed that she was not approached earlier and though she liked the script, she could not take the offer due to her prior commitments.Anushka Shettythen accepted the offer,whileSameera Reddywas signed to playMadhavan's pair in the film, as a village girl.In late November 2010, Anushka pulled out andAmala Paul,following her critically acclaimed performance inMynaa,was roped in to play a leading character, as the love interest of Arya's character.

Filming

Originally planned to commence in September 2010, the filming was postponed several times either due to pending pre-production works and unavailability of the artists.After Arya had finished shooting and dubbing forAvan Ivan,the first schedule was planned to begin on 2 March, which however, was also cancelled as Dhayanidhi wanted the filming to be pushed by another two months, which supposedly was the reason for Linguswamy's decision to produce the film himself. Shooting eventually started on 16 March 2011 inKaraikudi,with Madhavan, Arya, Sameera Reddy and Amala Paul participating.A song "Dumma Dumma Dummaa", choreographed by Brindha, was shot first, with nearly 2000 people being part of the shoot along with the four lead actors.A fight sequence, involving Arya and Madhavan, was shot in thePondicherry Universitysports complex on 24 April.In June 2011, other key action sequences were filmed atMadurai,Thoothukudi,ThanjavurandAruppukottai.The introduction song of the film was also shot in Thanjavur.Some action sequences were shot inMadanapalle,a town located in theChittoor district,Andhra Pradesh,while the climax was shot at Binny Mills inChennaiunder the supervision of stunt director Silva. Principal Photography was "Wrap (filmmaking) on October 2011.

Soundtrack

Vettai
Soundtrack albumto Vettai by Yuvan Shankar Raja
Released	28 December 2011
Recorded	2010–2011
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	24:13
Language	Tamil
Label	Saregama
Producer	Yuvan Shankar Raja
Yuvan Shankar Rajachronology
Rajapattai (2011) Vettai (2011) Mr. Nookayya (2012)

Following successful collaborations with directorLinguswamyinSandakozhi(2005) andPaiyaa(2010),Yuvan Shankar Rajawas signed up to produce the film score and soundtrack forVettaias well. In November 2010, the duo along with lyricistNa. Muthukumarleft for Malaysia to compose the first tunes. The soundtrack album was launched on 28 December 2011 at theAnna Centenary AuditoriuminKotturpuram,Chennai,with several lead actors and directors from the Tamil film industry attending the event.Six days prior to the soundtrack release, on 22 December 2011, the song "Pappappa" was launched as asingle trackat the studios ofRadio Mirchi,with amaking-ofvideo of the recording being simultaneously uploaded on YouTube.The song, which was sung by Yuvan Shankar Raja himself along with Renu Kannan, a finalist of thesecond seasonof the reality-based singing competitionAirtel Super Singer,quickly gained attention and became very popular.

Track listing

All lyrics are written byNa. Muthukumar

No.	Title	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Dham Dham"	Karthik,Krish	4:35
2.	"Damma Damma"	Haricharan,Shweta Mohan	4:51
3.	"Kattipidi Enna"	Vijay Prakash,Shweta Pandit	5:09
4.	"Pappappa"	Yuvan Shankar Raja,Renu Kannan	4:07
5.	"Thaiya Thakka"	Harini,Saindhavi	5:22
Total length:			24:13

Reception

Behindwoods said "Vettaihas some peppy likeable soundtracks to its credits. Even if it’s not Yuvan's best, Vettai packages all genres of folksy music well. With songs like 'Pappa Pappa' and the romantic 'Kattipudi', the album is all set to turn out to be a commercial winner ".

Release

Produced on a budget of₹25 crore,The satellite rights of the film were bought bySTAR Vijayfor₹75 million(US$900,000) and audio/DVD rights were sold for₹45 million(US$540,000).The filmmakers wanted to release the film on 13 January 2012, due to post production delays, the release date was postponed by a day. The movie released on thePongalweekend on 14 January 2012.Vettaiwas released in 650 screens worldwide on 14 January 2012 including 300 screens inTamil Nadu,250 screens in the rest of India, and about a 100 screens overseas.Vettaisold 4.3 million tickets worldwide.

Reception

Critical reception

Vettaireceived positive reviews.Behindwoodsrated the film 3.5/5 and called it a "light hearted film for the holiday season".Sify's critic wrote: "Lingusamy'sVettaiis a racy mass entertainer with all the ingredients mixed in the right proposition. No doubt that the director understands the pulse of the common man and has beautifully packaged it with all the essential commercial elements to suit the taste of the masses ".Pavithra Srinivasan ofRediffgave 2.5/5 and noted: "Vettaiis no classic, but it is good fun. "TheTimes of Indiawrote: "Though there is nothing new in terms of the story or screenplay, the movie is a fun ride as long as it lasts".Rohit Ramachandran ofNowrunningrated it 3/5 stating that "Vettaiis regular Kollywood stuff superiorly packaged with insurmountable energy. ".Deccan chronicle wrote: "The first half moves fast with unlimited entertainment, while the post-interval portions falls along predicted lines and pace suffers".Hindu wrote: "The story isn't out of the ordinary, but Lingusamy knows where to place twists and how. From Run to Sandakkozhi and now to Vettai, his action ventures, with the exception of Bheema and Ji, have screenplays that sustain the interest of the viewer".

Rachel Saltz ofThe New York Timeswrote: "Vettaipartakes of the something-for-everyone formula, mi xing the serious — corruption, evil gangs and limb-threatening fights — with the less so: songs, romance and comedy. It entertains without breaking any new ground, though it can also surprise ".

Awards and nominations

Ceremony	Category	Nominee	Result
2nd South Indian International Movie Awards	Best Actor in a Supporting Role	R. Madhavan	Won
	Best Actor in a Negative Role	Ashutosh Rana	Nominated

Remakes

The film's remake rights were sold for₹3 crore,to Bellamkonda Suresh. The Telugu version, titledTadakha,was released in 2013.and in Hindi asBaaghi 3(2020).

It was also remade in Bangladesh in Bengali asHitman(2014).

External links

• VettaiatIMDb
• VettaiatRotten Tomatoes