'' Tiyaan'' () is a 2017 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 2 ...
-language
socio-political
Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how ...
action thriller film
Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life ...
written by
Murali Gopy
Gopynathan Velayudhan Nair Muralikrishnan (born 4 March 1972), professionally credited as Murali Gopy, is an Indian actor-screenwriter, producer, author, singer, lyricist, music composer and journalist. He has written critically acclaimed films ...
and directed by Jiyen Krishnakumar. It features
Prithviraj Sukumaran
Prithviraj Sukumaran (born 16 October 1982) is an Indian actor, director, producer and playback singer primarily working in Malayalam cinema. He has also done Tamil, Telugu and Hindi films. He acted in more than 100 films in a variety of ...
and
Indrajith Sukumaran
Indrajith Sukumaran (born 17 December 1978) is an Indian actor and singer. He predominantly works in Malayalam cinema. Indrajith was born to the actors Sukumaran and Mallika Sukumaran and is the elder brother of Prithviraj Sukumaran.
Indrajit ...
. Music was composed by
Gopi Sundar
Gopi Sundar C. S. (born 30 May 1977) is an Indian music director, programmer, playback singer, songwriter, actor and performer who works prominently in Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil film industries. He started his career composing music for tele ...
. The filming started on 27 July 2016 at
Ramoji Film City
Ramoji Film City is an integrated film studio facility located in Hyderabad, India. Spread over 1,666 acres (674 ha), it is the largest film studio complex in the world and as such has been certified by the Guinness World Records. It was estab ...
,
Hyderabad
Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India ...
. Other locations include
Pune
Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...
,
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...
, and Nasik. It was released on 7 July 2017.
Plot
Pattabhiraman Giri is a Malayali Brahmin teacher living in North India. He is ordered to leave his house by Mahashay Bhagavan, a godman for building his ashram and claiming the surroundings for a land mafia. The house was built by followers of
Adi Shankara
Adi Shankara ("first Shankara," to distinguish him from other Shankaras)(8th cent. CE), also called Adi Shankaracharya ( sa, आदि शङ्कर, आदि शङ्कराचार्य, Ādi Śaṅkarācāryaḥ, lit=First Shanka ...
, ancestors of Giri by institution of a Chola king in North India. The house has a well, which has water throughout the year used by all of the villagers. Giri lives with his wife, Amba and daughter Arya teaching Sanskrit to aspirants. He is well respected as a pandit.
Giri gets warned by an unknown middle aged man about the consequences he will have to face by going against the God man. However, he chooses to fight. He is asked to look upwards to the fire on the hill if he needs help. The Godman plays dirty and poisons Giri's daughter and she dies. Giri's own friends and supporters goes against him and joins the Godman fooled by his fake miracles.
Mahashay Bhagavan and his followers visits Giri at night asking him to leave. He says whomsoever have the guts to kill a Brahmin can take over his land. After many attempts the Godman and troops fails and leaves. Giri and his house are attacked by men with guns. However, they are unable to bring any damage to the house. The Godman makes the attack is by maoists and thus Giri is forbidden from entering his house. He goes up to the hill in search of the unknown man but doesn't find him. He learns from Jameel that the unknown man is Azlan Muhammed, who lived in Mumbai.
Azlan is well respected priest, who attacks and kills all kind of violence in his area. He is married to a Hindu woman, Parineeti Adve and used to live happily fighting for his people. Azlan's sister, Jameela was raped by a rowdy with a rich father, Khan Sahib. The rowdy whips his sister and Jameel, her lover in the streets and Azlan kills him. A money greed madman Ramnath Gujjan promises to kill Azlan and bring his head. With blessings from his Babaji who is Mahashay Bhagavan, Gujjan attacks Azlan and his people at night. His sister, wife and daughter are killed by taking bullets for Azlan. However, Azlan survives his wounds because his heart is in the other side (
dextrocardia
Dextrocardia (from Latin ''dextro'', meaning "right hand side," and Greek ''kardia'', meaning "heart") is a rare congenital condition in which the apex of the heart is located on the right side of the body, rather than the more typical placement t ...
) alongside Jameel, and Gujjan shoots in the wrong side. Azlan leaves the land listening to a wise man's advice without knowing where he is going. The rowdy's father kills himself after he leaves. When Azlan lay dehydrated and unconscious in the desert of an unknown land, a bunch of yogis who seek no manly pleasures saves him. His pilgrimage with the yogis to different places showed him real values of life and wisdom. He walked out as a living weapon and stayed to fulfil his life purpose of dharma.
A mother runs into the Ashram of Mahashay Bhagvan with the dead body of her daughter asking if he can bring her back to life. She had fed her child with whatever the Godman had given her ignoring doctor's warnings. Somehow Giri wakes the child and the people starts to believe in him. People starts to ask him for blessings and as such causing distress to the Godman as he starts to lose his power. The Godman's troops attacks Giri and Azlan makes an entrance. Giri fights back and wins them over single handedly. He is astonished by his own powers and changes in him.
Mahashay secretly tries to meet Azlan at night. He is scared by the visions of Vasundara Devi (
Padmapriya Janakiraman
Padmapriya Janakiraman, (born 1983) better known mononymously as Padmapriya, is an Indian actress and model. She has acted in over 50 feature films and in 7 different languages: Bengali, Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, English, and Telugu. ...
), whom he killed in greed of money and power.
The Godman decides to show his power in front of people because of the push from his investors. He asks Giri to show his powers and do whatever he is doing to prove his power. However, he gets a vision of Azlan who makes him weak and unable to perform his own fake magic. He burns himself unable to find his remote in the stampede paying for his own sins.
Azlan and Giri has had recurrent dreams about an ancient war. It seems to be that in their previous lives they were friends who helped each other at war.
Cast
*
Prithviraj Sukumaran
Prithviraj Sukumaran (born 16 October 1982) is an Indian actor, director, producer and playback singer primarily working in Malayalam cinema. He has also done Tamil, Telugu and Hindi films. He acted in more than 100 films in a variety of ...
as Azlan Mohammed
*
Indrajith Sukumaran
Indrajith Sukumaran (born 17 December 1978) is an Indian actor and singer. He predominantly works in Malayalam cinema. Indrajith was born to the actors Sukumaran and Mallika Sukumaran and is the elder brother of Prithviraj Sukumaran.
Indrajit ...
as Pattabhiraman Giri
*
Murali Gopy
Gopynathan Velayudhan Nair Muralikrishnan (born 4 March 1972), professionally credited as Murali Gopy, is an Indian actor-screenwriter, producer, author, singer, lyricist, music composer and journalist. He has written critically acclaimed films ...
as Remakant aka Mahashay Bhagavan
*
Ananya as Amba
* Ravi Singh as Kushal Ghorpade
*Adesh S Nair as Dalith Boy
* Mridula Sathe as Parineeti Adve
*
Suraj Venjaramoodu as Jayanthan Nair
*
Shine Tom Chacko
Shine Tom Chacko (born 15 September 1983) is an Indian actor and former assistant director who works in Malayalam cinema. After working as an assistant to director Kamal for about 9 years, he forayed into acting through the film. ''Gaddama''. ...
as Jameel Askari
*
Rahul Madhav
Rahul Madhav (born 29 December 1984) is an Indian actor who mainly appears in Malayalam cinema. He has also acted in Tamil and Kannada films. His notable films are ''Vaadamalli'', ''Thani Oruvan'', ''Memories'' and '' 100 Days of Love''.
Acti ...
as Anil Raghavan
*
Ranjeet
Ranjeet Bedi (born 13 September 1942 as Gopal Bedi) popularly known as Ranjeet, is an Indian actor and film director born in Jandiala Guru near Amritsar (Punjab), best known for his work in Bollywood.Singh, Nonika (1999)Ranjeet's triple love", ...
as Khan Sahib
*
Amit Tiwari
Amit Tiwari is an Indian actor who predominantly works in Telugu cinema. He is known for his negative roles in Telugu films in addition to a few Tamil and Kannada films. Some of his notable roles are in films such as ''Vikramarkudu
''Vikr ...
as Ramnath Gujjar
* Nakshatra Indrajith as Arya Pattabhiraman Giri
* Rajat Mahajan as Vikram Singh Yadav
*
Paris Laxmi as Ellen Richard
*
Padmapriya Janakiraman
Padmapriya Janakiraman, (born 1983) better known mononymously as Padmapriya, is an Indian actress and model. She has acted in over 50 feature films and in 7 different languages: Bengali, Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, English, and Telugu. ...
as Vasundhara Devi
*
Manasa Radhakrishnan as Jaseela
* Bhavika as North Indian mother
*
Mohanlal
Mohanlal Viswanathan (born 21 May 1960), known mononymously as Mohanlal, is an Indian actor, film producer, playback singer, film distributor, and director who predominantly works in Malayalam cinema besides also having sporadically app ...
as narrator (voice)
* Laksmi Priya as Kowsalya
* Ashwin Mathew as News channel head
* John Kokken as Muthassim
*
Sudipto Balav
Sudipto Balav is an Indian actor who is known for his negative roles. He is known for his works primarily in Malayalam, Hindi, and Bengali-language films.
Career
In 1999, Sudipto Balav started acting in Kolkata and worked on several televisio ...
as R. C. Shukla
Critical response
The film received mixed reviews. Sanjith Sidhardhan of ''
The Times of India
''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...
'' rated the movie (3.5/5) and wrote: "Murali delivers with an intense script packed with potent dialogues, not just in Malayalam but in Hindi and Sanskrit too. The initial half wraps a relevant take on the current religiopolitical scenario of the country as an entertainer set in a hamlet, inhabited by people of various sects, religions, and languages." In his review for
manoramaonline.com, G. Ragesh said "Be it the theme or the setting, Sukumaran-brothers starring Tiyaan is an attempt to explore lesser known terrains. The film, set in a sleepy and parched village in the Hindi heartland, addresses burning issues such as sale of divinity and associated crimes, and tries to go deeper in search of the soul of Indian spirituality". Manoj Kumar R of ''The Indian Express'' rated the movie (2.5/5) and wrote: Unless you have a stomach for a drama told in a socio-political thriller format that unfolds with backstories in an extend of nearly 2 hours 50 minutes, you may not find Tiyaan entertaining.
Baradwaj Rangan
Baradwaj Rangan is an Indian film critic, writer, and formerly the deputy editor of ''The Hindu''. He later became a senior editor of Film Companion. Rangan won the National Film Award for Best Film Critic in 2006. Before joining ''The Hindu' ...
of Film Companion South wrote "Tiyaan comes off like AR Murugadoss meets your average Telugu star vehicle, high-concept mumbo-jumbo fused with lowbrow pleasures. And that is valid reason for a film’s being. But the writing is a disaster."
References
{{reflist
2010s Malayalam-language films
2017 films
Indian thriller films
Films about Hinduism
Films shot at Ramoji Film City
Films shot in Telangana
Films shot in Mumbai
Films shot in Maharashtra
Films scored by Gopi Sundar
Films with screenplays by Murali Gopy
2017 thriller films