Maaran (film)

Maaran (Sathyaraj) is a clerk in the district collector's office. His life centres around his loving wife (Seetha), his son (Raghuvannan), and his daughter (Preethi Varma). Soft-spoken, and a Gandhian to the hilt, Maaran does not stand by any smear on the Mahatma's name. Being a staunch patriot, he had even named his son Sudhandhiram.

After topping at the state level, Sudhandhiram gets an admission in a medical college, where he is in for a rough time, ragged mercilessly by the sadistic Shivadas (Robert) and his cronies. Nonetheless, Anjali (Santhoshi) falls in love with Sudhandhiram. Matters run wild when Sudhandhiram returns Shivadas's humiliations with a tight slap and defeats him in the college elections. Shivadas's humiliation makes matters even wild when Sudhandhiram pays for it with his life. Shivadas packs the corpse in a suitcase and disposes of it. But soon, Shivadas is hauled up for the murder. However, Shivadas manages to get a clean chit of the case thanks to his influential father (Ravikumar). Seetha becomes a lunatic due to the emotional shock. The grieving Maaran takes it upon himself to justify his son's murder.

Maaran traces out the conspirators one by one, and have their evil terminate themselves, justifying his own way of justice. In the end, Maaran kills the doctor and gets surrounded in the court. He is hanged in jail.

The film was first announced with the title of Sivaji, before being changed to Maaran.[3] Maaran’ is directed by A. Jawahar, who had apprenticed with directors Senthilnathan & Sunder C. This is his first film. While Deva composes the music, cinematography is by U.K.Senthilkumar, editing by Sai Illango, art by R.K.Nagu and stunt arrangements by Super Subbarayan.

Playing the role of Satyaraj's son is debutant Raghuvannan, son of actor-director Manivannan. Raghu is paired with Santhoshi, an actress of the small screen and one of the leads in Agathyan's ‘Kaadhal Samrajyam’. Sharat Babu, Hanifas, Devan, Pallavi, Delhi Ganesh, Raj Kapoor, Ilavarasu and Robert, brother of dancer-actress Alphonsa play the supporting roles.[4]

The film score and the soundtrack were composed by film composer Deva. The soundtrack, released in 2002, features 5 tracks with lyrics written by Pa. Vijay.[5][6]

The film received generally mixed to positive reviews. AllIndianSite.com cited the film as "a good movie and worth watching".[7] Malathi Ragarajan of hindu.com said : "Maaran takes off so well and so differently but the maker obviously got jittery mid-way and allows regular formula fare to take over, with revenge as the pivot."[8]

• Maaran at Rotten Tomatoes