Naan Sigappu Manithan (2014 film)


Naan Sigappu Manithan is a 2014 Tamil-language action thriller film directed by Thiru and produced by UTV Motion Pictures. Co-produced by Vishal, under his banner Vishal Film Factory, the film stars himself with Lakshmi Menon and Ineya in supporting roles. G. V. Prakash Kumar composed the film's music. Richard M. Nathan handled the cinematography of the film, while editing was done by Ruben. It was released on 11 April 2014.
The film's plot deals with narcolepsy, where the protagonist Indran, a narcoleptic patient, sets out to find the assailants, whom his girlfriend was attacked by unknown persons, and get his revenge. Upon release, the film received positive reviews and was declared as commercial success. It is dubbed into Hindi as Pyaar Reloaded and also in Telugu as Indhrudu. The movie was remade in Odia as Shiva Not Out.

Plot

In the middle of the night, Indhiran, accompanied by his two friends Sathish and Karuna, purchase a gun illegally from a local gangster. Back home, Indhiran stares at his wish list and recalls his past.
Since childhood, Indhiran has been suffering from narcolepsy, a rare disorder, which makes him fall asleep whenever his emotions reach an extreme and hinders him from living an ordinary life. He needs to be accompanied all the time. Companies hesitate to hire him, although he has excelled in academics, and he cannot impregnate women since he would fall asleep during sex. However, he can still hear whatever is being said when he is sleeping.
Indhiran creates a list with 10 goals that he wants to achieve on his own. One day, he ventures out alone, which was one of his goals. When he is almost hit by a vehicle while crossing the road, his fear mounts, and he falls asleep in the middle of the road. A passerby makes him pose as an orphaned corpse and gathers money from onlookers for his burial. Meera, who passes by, takes pity and shells out almost five grands. She later meets Indhiran in a mall and falls unconscious upon seeing him alive. After clearing up the misunderstanding, they start dating and fall for each other. Meera makes one of Indhiran's dreams come true, but her father opposes their marriage as Indhiran cannot give birth to a child. Meera urges Indhiran to find a way how he could stay awake. It dawns on Indhiran that he had never fallen asleep while taking a shower. Believing that her father will accept Indhiran only when his potency is proved, Meera and Indhiran have sex underwater in their pool, resulting in Meera becoming pregnant.
On a late-night drive, Meera and Indhiran find themselves in an under-construction bridge. Their car is hit by another, and the shock makes Indhiran doze. Meera is brutally attacked and raped by four thugs. Indhiran can hear the entire incident but remains asleep, and sheds a tear for being helpless. Meera falls into a coma, and her baby gets aborted. A heartbroken Indhiran vows to exact revenge on the perpetrators.
The narrative moves back to the present. Deciding to venge all by himself, Indhiran fails to testify to the police. Indhiran comes to know that the sound of the sudden obstacles make him sleep. To prevent this, he buys a portable audio player and uses it with full volume. Inquiring Meera's friends, Indhiran first suspects Karthik, a rich but ill-mannered guy whose marriage proposal was rejected by Meera. Indhiran confronts him, but he feigns ignorance about the incident.
Indhiran remembers that it was four people, with one of them named Sekhar, and Sekhar's ringtone, while the police finds out that the offenders rode a red car. Indhiran stumbles upon a red car in a petrol bunk and inquires the driver, who claims that the car was with a mechanic named Sekhar on the day the crime took place. At the workshop, he spots the mechanic who tries to abscond, recognizing Indhiran, and a chase ensues, leading them to a building under construction. Informed by Sathish, Karuna arrives there and kills Sekhar. He then slits himself and is admitted for treatment. Karuna then recollects.
Married to Karuna for two years, Kavitha was dissatisfied with her drunkard husband; she begins an affair with Aravind, a rich friend of Karuna. He spends a lot of money on buying her expensive gifts. Indhiran gains knowledge of this and advises Kavitha against it. It turns out that Karuna, to realize his ambitions of running a business in US, had been using his wife to manipulate Aravind. Citing Indhiran's confrontation, Kavitha bluffed to Aravind that if Karuna gets to know about the affair, he would kill them both. She suggested that the only way to solve it once and for all is to arrange the amount of 20 million that Karuna needs to settle in the states. With him gone, they could enjoy being together. Aravind agreed to finance Karuna out of his lust for her.
Later, when Karuna and Kavitha are celebrating their success, Indhiran drops by unexpectedly. They mess up; Indhiran suspects them and informs Aravind, who confronts the couple. When Aravind realizes that he had been cheated, he hits Kavitha in a fit of rage, and she dies. Infuriated, Karuna retaliates and kills Aravind. Karuna arranges for disposing them with the help of the thugs and lies to Indhiran that Kavitha has eloped with Aravind. Since he assumed that Indhiran was responsible for Kavitha's death, Karuna had planned to take revenge by making him suffer the same way and requested the thugs to rape Meera.
The remaining thugs insist Karuna to bring Indhiran to the same place where Sekhar was killed. Finding out that it was Karuna who had killed Sekhar, they beat him up. The thugs then remove the audio player from Indhiran, who gets an adrenaline rush and dozes off. While the thugs are assaulting him, one of them breaks a water pump, which splashes water all over and awakens Indhiran. He kills them all, except Karuna.
Indhiran tells that he had seen Karuna killing Sekhar. When Indhiran questions Karuna as to why he sent thugs to attack Meera, Karuna angrily tells him that it was revenge for Kavitha's death, which was caused by Indhiran telling Aravind the truth. Karuna angrily attacks Indhiran and Indhiran retaliates back, hitting Karuna violently. Despite feeling bad for his friend and hesitant to kill him due to their close friendship, he remembers Meera and kicks Karuna into a steel construction bar, killing him.
With all his wishes fulfilled, Indhiran has a new wish that he would make Meera recover soon. The final scene shows Indhiran hugging Meera who is tearful hearing him, which shows that she is definitely recovering.

Cast

announced that director Thiru would direct a film under his production house in June 2013, and that Jai would play the lead role in the film. However, in October 2013, Jai announced that his schedules were busy and thus Vishal himself opted to play the lead role in the film. Lakshmi Menon was selected to play the lead heroine.
The film began production on 29 November 2013 and it was announced that Ineya was added to the cast to play another leading female role. The shooting of the film was wrapped up within five months.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album and background score for Naan Sigappu Manithan, was composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar. The soundtrack album features four tracks, a remix and an instrumental, all of them were written by lyricist Na. Muthukumar. The tracklist of the film was released, prior to the audio launch. The soundtrack album was marketed and released by Sony Music label on 13 March 2014, at the audio launch event, held at Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai. Prior to the album release, a teaser and two songs were premiered at the residence of actor Rajinikanth, on 12 March 2014, where Rajinikanth praised the film's team for the hard work of completing the film within a short period of time.
The soundtrack album received positive reviews from critics. Indiaglitz have a rating of 3 out of 5 stars, stating "Melody and Innovation from GV." Onlykollywood gave a positive review stating "Naan Sigappu Manithan has a perfect mix of tracks which could meet everyone's expectations over visuals too" and gave a rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars. The Times of India gave 3 out of 5, to the album stating, "This four song-one remix-one theme score album has two beautiful numbers Yelelo and Idhayam that have the potential to become chartbusters." Behindframes commented "Naan Sigappu Manithan' can be regarded as a comeback album for GV Prakash. He has exerted an immense effort on extending his hands on special genres and of course after a very long time, you can celebrate the musical spell of GV Prakash."

Release

The satellite rights were sold to Star Vijay. The making promo clips of the film was released on mid-February 2014. The teaser of the film was released on 13 March 2014, at the film's audio launch. The theatrical trailer released on 28 March 2014. The film released worldwide on 11 April 2014. Following the distributors' feedback, the film was trimmed by seven minutes. The film's Telugu dubbed version Indrudu was released on 20 June 2014. The television premiere of Naan Sigappu Manithan took place on 22 October 2014, coinciding with Diwali.

Reception

Critical reception

The film opened to positive reviews from critics many praising Vishal's performance, screenplay, fast-paced narration while some criticized its second half which was apparently vulgar to them.
Baradwaj Rangan of The Hindu wrote, "The hero is a narcoleptic, and this aspect is not just a cool marketing gimmick. It has been integrated into the very fibre of the film...The first half is strong..the director, Thiru, displays a lot of control in scenes that could have erupted into melodrama....And then we enter the second half, and the film goes haywire...Still, given the general state of hero-oriented Tamil cinema, where a hollow kind of masculinity is endlessly celebrated, it's nice to root for a hero who isn't a slacker but a brilliant student, and who sits down with his pals for a cup of tea, rather than booze, and who gets rejected by a girl his mother sets him up with". Sify stated, "Thiru is able to make an engrossing actor driven entertainer without any super hero gimmicks. Naan Sigappu Manithan is an gripping entertainer which is not run-of-the-mill". Siddarth Srinivas of Cinemalead gave 3.5 out of 5 and concluded, "Vishal sleeps, you wont!" The Times of India gave it 3 out of 5 and wrote, "There is intelligence in this script...but Thiru slips quite a bit in the second half as he goes for one twist too many in explaining why Meera is attacked. What we are left with is a feeling of mild discontent, as a promising premise is compromised for a generic revenge drama". Rediff gave 3 out of 5 and stated, "Naan Sigappu Manithan is a riveting revenge drama with an honest narrative, excellent performances and many entertaining twists and turns". OneIndia rated the film 3 out of 5 and called it an "edge-of-the-seat entertainer" and a "perfect commercial film for all classes". Anupama Subramanian of the Deccan Chronicle gave 3/5 and wrote, "Overall, a gripping entertainer with an unusual theme.". Indiaglitz gave 2.75 out of 5 and concluded, "A fair entertainer that loses the steam through the second half.". Behindwoods gave it 2.75 out of 5 stars and stated, "Despite minor moments where the script deviates from its USP, Naan Sigappu Manithan pulls through as a pretty tense drama that ticks the commercial requirements". IANS gave 2.5 out of 5 and wrote, "NSM stands testimonial to the fact that a simple story that has been milked dry over the years can still be narrated in myriad engaging ways. One such way is what we see in this film, which is not an exceptional thriller, but definitely has the potential to keep you hooked." Hindustan Times gave 2 out of 5 and stated, "Despite a novel subject, Naan Sigappu Manithan fails to deliver". Bharath Vijaykumar of Moviecrow gave 2.75 out of 5 and concluded, "NSM has a neat first half and a decent second half with disconnect between the two halves.".

Box office

The film opened magnificent response at the box office by collecting 12.14 crore in its first day. The film grossed 30.1 crore in its first weekend despite having competition from Tenaliraman. The film grossed 3.52 crore in Chennai first week. According to traders, the film grossed 70 crore worldwide in its final collection. The film declared Super Hit at the box office. The film became a hat-trick hit for Vishal as well as director Thiru.