Naan Mahaan Alla (2010 film)

Jeeva is a Chennai-based youngster who hails from a middle-class family. His father Pragasam is a call taxi driver and the family's sole breadwinner. Jeeva meets a woman named Priya at their friend's wedding and soon they fall for each other. Upon meeting Priya's father, Jeeva is asked to get a job first in order to get married. Jeeva accepts, taking the job but soon gets fired. However, Pragasam, who had witnessed a girl being taken away by a group of 5 young men, gets attacked by them. He is admitted to hospital where they try to kill him again in absence of Jeeva but fail to do so. Pragasam is brought home and Jeeva starts taking responsibility for his family by reclaiming his lost job and maintaining all the accounts. Looking at the news reports of the girl that boarded his taxi and got mutilated by the 5 guys, Pragasam calls Jeeva to accompany him to the morgue where he helps the investigating officer by providing him clues about the killer. Sensing trouble, the gang enlists the help of Pey Babu, the uncle of one of the members, to plan and kill Pragasam after explaining how they killed the girl and her lover. When Pragasam and Jeeva go out to shop for the latter's sister's wedding, one of the men calls Jeeva on behalf of a store, thus separating him from his father. The men then create a stampede by throwing bottles as one of them stabs Pragasam with a piece of poisoned glass shrapnel. Pragasam instantly dies in Jeeva's arms and following his cremation, Jeeva tells the cops not to pursue the killers anymore as it would bring nothing but trouble for his middle-class family.

However, Jeeva undergoes a violent transformation and decides to take the law into his hands, fearing the gang might commit more inhumane crimes if left free. He recalls one of the men, during his father's death, looked the same as Pragasam described him during his visit to the morgue. Jeeva enlists the help of his friend Kutti Nadesan, a Chennai gangster, to track down the gang. Kutti Nadesan with his influence asks his gang to bring all the guys who plan for a murder in Chennai, so that Jeeva can identify him. While Jeeva is busy identifying the killers, Pey Babu leaves upon being questioned by Nadesan. Jeeva realizes Pey Babu was the man who delivered pamphlets at his home before Pragasam's murder. A chase ensues, and Jeeva succeeds in capturing Pey Babu after a brief fight. He orders him to call the boys and tell them to stay in front of their college. Jeeva succeeds in capturing his father's killer and tries to escape, but the gang gets alerted and ends up freeing their friend from Jeeva's custody following a glass bottle attack. One of the gang members stabs Pey Babu to his death. Jeeva chases the attacker near a railway line where the two brutally fight, resulting in the attacker getting run over by a train.

Jeeva visits the deceased gang member's funeral to catch his friends, who escape before Jeeva sees them. They go to the beach and Nadesan is also there along with his henchmen. The gang gets drunk and vows to kill Jeeva, who contacts Nadesan to find out about the four remaining boys. However, noticing the boys yelling, Nadesan asks for specifics and confirms the gang's location at the beach. While trying to confront the gang, Nadesan and his henchmen are lured into a trap where they're all eliminated one-by-one before Jeeva arrives. A brutal fight ensues, leaving the gang members fatally wounded. Jeeva throws them into a pit and departs after burying all of them alive.

The soundtrack of Naan Mahaan Alla is composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, making this his third collaboration with Karthi, after scoring highly successful results with Paruthiveeran (2007) and Paiyaa (2010),[20][21] and his first with director Suseenthiran, who worked with V. Selvaganesh for his previous film. The soundtrack album, which features five songs, with lyrics penned by Na. Muthukumar and Yugabharathi was released on 24 July 2010 at Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai.[22] The song "Va Va Nilava Pudichi" is repeated at the end of the album, with singer Rahul Nambiar credited for both. Nambiar, however, stated on his Facebook site that two versions were recorded featuring his and Haricharan's voice, respectively, but that both songs in the album were rendered by Haricharan only and his own version wasn't included at all. The songs were later dubbed for the Telugu version Naa Peru Shiva. The Telugu album was launched on 25 June 2011.[23]

Only three songs were used in the film in their entirety, with "Oru Maalai Neram" being left out completely. The album received extremely positive reviews, with "Iragai Pole" in particular, sung by composer Yuvan Shankar Raja, becoming hugely popular, topping the charts for several weeks.[24] Before the soundtrack release, Yuvan claimed on Twitter that the song was one of his favorites, on which he had worked for days.[25] After seeing the entire film, he was said to have remixed and completely reworked that song, altering the orchestration inter alia, to match it with the visuals.[26] He garnered accolades for the film's score as well. As per Suseenthiran, the music was "crucial" in the second half of the film, which was the reason for opting for Yuvan Shankar.[15] According to Karthi, Yuvan had worked for 12 days for the score of the second half, which has "hardly any dialogues", adding that he was the one "who narrates the story in the second half through his music".[26]

• Official website
• Naan Mahaan Alla at IMDb
• Naan Mahaan Alla at AllMovie
• Naan Mahaan Alla at Rotten Tomatoes