''Thaandavam'' () is a 2012 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

neo-noir Neo-noir is a film genre that adapts the visual style and themes of 1940s and 1950s American film noir for contemporary audiences, often with more graphic depictions of violence and sexuality. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the term ...

action thriller film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

written and directed by A. L. Vijay. The film stars an

ensemble cast In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that comprises many principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17 Structure In contrast to the po ...

with Vikram,

Jagapati Babu Veeramachaneni Jagapathi Chowdary (born 12 February 1962), professionally known as Jagapathi Babu (), is an Indian actor known for his works in Telugu cinema. He has also appeared in Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi films. Babu has appeare ...

Anushka Shetty Sweety Shetty (born 7 November 1981), known by her stage name Anushka Shetty, is an Indian actress known for her works in Telugu and Tamil cinema. She is the recipient of three Filmfare Awards South, two Nandi Awards, two SIIMA Awards and o ...

Amy Jackson Amy Louise Jackson Westwick (née Jackson; born 31 January 1992) is a British actress and model known for her work in Indian films. She predominantly works in Tamil films but has appeared in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and English films. Jackson's ...

Lakshmi Rai Lakshmi Rai, professionally credited as Raai Laxmi, is an Indian actress and model who predominantly works in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi languages. Early life Raai Laxmi was born in Bangalore, Karnataka to Ram Rai and Manjul ...

, Nassar, Santhanam,

Raj Arjun Raj Arjun is an Indian actor who mainly works in Hindi cinema. He has also worked in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu cinema. He is the recipient of Zee Cine Awards for Best Actor In A Negative Role and Indian Television Academy Awards for Best ...

and Saranya in pivotal roles It is produced by UTV Motion Pictures and features music composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar. ''Thaandavam'' was released worldwide on 28 September 2012.

Plot

31 December 2010: At 11:59 pm, a sudden bomb blast occurs in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, killing several people. After a year, A blind man named Kenny Thomas lays flowers on the

memorial A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects such as home ...

and mourns someone's death during the bomb blast. He is provided with secret details by a mysterious woman. Kenny then takes a taxi driven by Sathyan, a comical Tamilian. He drops Kenny at a place and waits for him to return, but Kenny goes inside, kills a person and throws him down. Seeing the corpse, Sathyan flees; Kenny is shown to produce a sound from his mouth to find his way, which is later shown as echolocation. Kenny plays the piano in a church, and as he is blind, he has many people care for him. In the meantime, he carries out two more murders, taking the same taxi driven by the innocent Sathyan, following instructions from the mysterious woman. Sara Vinayagam, a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

-born

Anglo-Indian Anglo-Indian people are a distinct minority group, minority community of mixed-race British and Indian ancestry. During the colonial period, their ancestry was defined as British paternal and Indian maternal heritage; post-independence, "Angl ...

woman, wins the

Miss London Miss England is a national beauty pageant in England. History The contest, title owned by the Miss World organisation is organised each year by Angie Beasley, a winner of 25 beauty contests in the 1980s and has organised beauty pageants aro ...

title, and to build her social profile, she goes to Kenny's church and acts like she is helping out there. Initially, Kenny does not like her, but eventually, they become friends. Sara's father is a doctor, who supports Kenny.

Inspector Inspector, also police inspector or inspector of police, is a police rank. The rank or position varies in seniority depending on the organization that uses it. Australia The rank of Inspector is present in all Australian police forces excep ...

Veerakathi, a British Tamil citizen, is the officer in charge of investigating the murders. As the

autopsy An autopsy (also referred to as post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of deat ...

of the murdered victims takes place under Sara's father, Veerakathi visits him and learns about Kenny, who is admitted there for a small accident. Veerakathi initially suspects Kenny but is not convinced. Sathyan is found at all the murder locations, and the police arrest him; suspecting his involvement in the murders. Sathyan manages to find a picture of Kenny from a local newspaper and informs Veerakathi. Sathyan is released and meets Sara. Both of them go to a place (one that she learns of from Kenny's phone, which he missed during a fight with local thugs). They reach there in time to see Kenny almost kill a steel company owner named Victor. Kenny flees the scene after sensing them and takes Sathyan's taxi to escape. Due to his blindness, he runs the taxi into a river, along with Sathyan and Sara. They get out and reach the riverbank. While escaping, Sara and Sathyan are stopped and confronted by Geetha, who reveals Kenny's real identity: Past: Kenny was a RAW officer in India, whose real name is Shivakumar. Shiva and his close friend Sharath completed various missions for the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

. Shiva married Meenakshi, a conservative eye doctor in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

. Initially distant, as time goes by, both became closer to each other, albeit without expressing love for each other. Meenakshi had decided to express her love to Shiva on New Year's Day (which turns out to be his birthday). Meanwhile, Sharath handled a case where an Indian Army secret (a flowchart) about a WMD went missing. Shiva showed interest in the case and left for London under an alias. A former Indian policeman named Kenny helped him. Shiva found an important clue, but Sharath got injured during a fight; Shiva was shocked to find his plans leaked and was chased by the L.C.P.D, following a series of incidents. Shiva soon realized that Sharath was the mastermind behind the missing flowchart, as he sold it to a terrorist group with some help from London based militants. Shiva uncovered the entire plot and asked Sharath to surrender, but he got shocked to know that Meenakshi had also come to London along with Sharath (to surprise Shiva on his birthday and propose to him). To save her, Shiva obeyed Sharath's order and went to a place (with Kenny), where a sudden bomb blast occurred, killing Kenny and Meenakshi and blinding Shiva. Present: Geetha reveals that she's Kenny's wife, and decided to take revenge on those responsible for the deaths of Kenny and Meenakshi. She forms a team with Shiva and joins him in a school where he learns echolocation from Daniel Kish. After that, Geetha reveals about the people who caused the disaster to Kenny, even including his friend Sharath, which formed the motive for the murders. After burning Sharath with the Metal Melting Machine in Victor's (Sharath's friend) factory, the India Union Minister requested Kenny to come back to India as Shivakumar, but he rejects the request as Kenny's former identity as Shivakumar had ''died'' and he is going to spend his life for Meenakshi.

Cast

* Vikram as Shivakumar/Kenny Thomas/Arjun Rathore/Imran *

Jagapathi Babu Veeramachaneni Jagapathi Chowdary (born 12 February 1962), professionally known as Jagapathi Babu (), is an Indian actor known for his works in Telugu cinema. He has also appeared in Tamil cinema, Tamil, Kannada cinema, Kannada, Malayalam cine ...

as Sharath Kumar *

as Meenakshi *

as Miss London Sara Vinayagam *

as Geetha * Santhanam as Sathyan, the Tamil-speaking taxi driver * Nassar as Veerakathi Pillai * Saranya as Shivakumar's mother *

Sathish Sathish Muthukrishnan (born 23 May 1987) is an Indian actor and comedian working in the Tamil cinema. He made a breakthrough portraying a role alongside Sivakarthikeyan in '' Ethir Neechal'' (2013). He won Edison Award for Best Comedian for h ...

as Modelling Agent *

Kota Srinivasa Rao Kota Srinivasa Rao (born 10 July 1942) is an Indian character actor known for his work primarily in Telugu cinema and Telugu theatre. He has also starred in a few films in Tamil cinema, Tamil, Hindi cinema, Hindi, Kannada cinema, Kannada and Ma ...

as the Union Home Minister *

Sayaji Shinde Sayaji Shinde (Marathi pronunciation: əjaːd͡ʒiː ʃin̪d̪eː born 13 January 1959) is an Indian actor who has acted in Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, English, Gujarati, Hindi, and Bhojpuri films. Sayaji started his act ...

as Ravi Chandran * M. S. Bhaskar as Thambi Mama *

Thambi Ramaiah Thambi Ramaiah is an Indian actor, director and comedian who works in the Tamil film industry. He has also worked occasionally as a lyricist. He directed three films, '' Manu Needhi'' (2000), '' Indiralohathil Na Azhagappan'' (2008) and '' Mani ...

as Thappache Mama *

Delhi Ganesh Ganesan Mahadevan (1 August 1944 – 9 November 2024), known by his stage name Delhi Ganesh, was an Indian actor who mostly acted in supporting roles in Tamil cinema and serials. He was well known for the versatility of roles he played during h ...

as Meenakshi's father * Rajie Vijay Sarathy as Meenakshi's mother *

Balaji Venugopal Balaji Venugopal is an Indian actor, who has worked in Tamil films. Beginning his career as a radio host and television anchor, Balaji appeared in films including ''Poi Solla Porom'', ''Madrasapattinam'' (2010) and '' Nanban'' (2012), before pl ...

as Meenakshi's cousin *

Sujitha Sujitha (born 12 July 1980) is an Indian actress who works in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam TV serials. She also acted in some Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam films. Personal life She was born to T. S. Mani and Radha in Nungambakkam, Ch ...

as Abi * Daniel Kish as himself *

Alexx O'Nell Alexander Leonard O'Neill (born 26 July 1980) is an American actor and musician who works in Indian films. He is best known for his roles in the films '' L2: Empuraan'', '' Ae Watan Mere Watan'', '' Khufiya'', '' Golondaaj'', '' Roohi'', '' Aarya ...

as The Agent *

as Kenny Thomas (Original) * Subiksha Raman as Meera, Meenakshi's sister * Daniel Jordan as Richard

Production

UTV Motion Pictures commenced an innovative title contest in

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, and it received massive response from Vikram fans. Vikram was revealed to play the role of a blind man, who practices the technique of

human echolocation Human echolocation is the ability of humans to detect objects in their environment by sensing echoes from those objects, by actively creating sounds: for example, by tapping their canes, lightly stomping their foot, clapping their hands, snapping ...

, the ability to detect objects, their position and size by sensing echoes. Vikram underwent special sessions with Daniel Kish, an internationally renowned expert of human echolocation. The team had planned to bring Kish to Chennai for the audio launch ceremony. Anushka was chosen to portray Vikram's wife in the film.

plays a British-born-Tamil girl in the film and was said to dub for herself as well. Telugu actor

was selected to play villain.

Filming

Filming commenced in Chennai in early December 2011 and was to be held in various locations in the US for 60 days and later in Delhi and various locations across southern

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

. Sources said that the film would be entirely shot in Los Angeles city. Almost 50 per cent of the shoot was completed with the Delhi and Chennai schedules. While "delays in getting the visa for the entire cast and crew" was the official reason given for the change of location from the US to the UK, sources told that the move was also necessitated to keep the budget from skyrocketing. Some scenes were shot in UK, including a song and dance scene shot at

Botany Bay Botany Bay (Dharawal language, Dharawal: ''Kamay'') is an open oceanic embayment, located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, south of the Sydney central business district. Its source is the confluence of the Georges River at Taren Point a ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

joined the team in London in April 2012. A duet song between Vikram and Amy was shot on the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album was composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, featuring lyrics written by

Na. Muthukumar Nagarajan Muthukumar (12 July 1975 – 14 August 2016) was an Indian poet, lyricist, and author who predominantly worked in Tamil language film songs. He was known for his frequent collaborations with composers Yuvan Shankar Raja and G. V. Pra ...

. It is the 25th album of the music director.

Release

''Thaandavam'' was produced on a budget of . The film helped raise for the National Association of Blind (NAB) through its premiere show donor passes. The film released about 1000+ screens worldwide. The satellite rights of the film were sold to

STAR Vijay Star Vijay is an Indian Tamil language general entertainment pay television channel owned by JioStar, a joint venture between Viacom18 and Disney India. The channel telecasts programmes such as serials, reality shows & Tamil films. History T ...

. The film was later dubbed in Hindi under the title ''Desh Prem The Real Hero''.

Critical reception

''Thaandavam'' received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics. The Times of India rated the film 3/5, writing "Director Vijay and actor Vikram collaborate again in this movie after their earlier successful outing in Deiva Thirumagal, And Thaandavam'has everything going for it – big cast, good locations, a story with potential and a competent director – yet the result is far from satisfactory because of a weak and meandering screenplay, and poor pacing."

Rediff 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 ...

's Pavithra Srinivasan wrote that the film was a "damp squib" and gave 2 out of 5 stars. Indiaglitz wrote: "''Thaandavam'' has good sides and bad ones". Sify's reviewer claimed that it was "Vikram and him alone who diverts your attention from the film's little logical script flaws and spellbinds you with an endearing act that is Thaandavam's biggest strength". in.com's critic stated that it was a "neat revenge saga", further adding that it was "worth a watch for its neat screenplay and lavish production values", while giving it 3 out of 5. Prakash Upadhyaya of Oneindia.in gave 3/5 and wrote "Thaandavam is not glamorous but it is rich. It does not have masala elements yet it is entertaining". Tamilko wrote: "Thaandavam’s dreary screenplay hampers the much needed pace for a film set in espionage backdrop. Though Vikram greatly rescues the movie, the dull and predictable sequences doesn’t help Thaandavam’s course". The Hindu described it as a fiery dance of the righteous.

Awards

References

External links

* {{A. L. Vijay 2010s Indian films 2010s Tamil-language films 2012 action thriller films 2012 controversies 2012 films British Indian films Fictional portrayals of the Tamil Nadu Police Films about blind people in India Films about mass murder Films about nuclear war and weapons Films about terrorism in India Films about the Research and Analysis Wing Films directed by A. L. Vijay Films involved in plagiarism controversies Films scored by G. V. Prakash Kumar Films set in Delhi Films set in London Films set in Uttar Pradesh Films shot in Agra Films shot in Delhi Films shot in Kent Films shot in London Indian action thriller films Indian Army in films Indian films about revenge Indian intellectual property law Tamil-language Indian films UTV Motion Pictures films