Sivappathigaram

Sivappathigaram
Poster
Directed by	Karu Pazhaniappan
Written by	Karu Pazhaniappan
Produced by	M. R. Mohan Ratha B. S. Radhakrishnan
Starring	Vishal Mamta Mohandas
Cinematography	S. Gopinath
Edited by	Suresh Urs
Music by	Vidyasagar
Production company	Screen Play Entertainment Ptd. Ltd.
Release date	24 November 2006 (2006-11-24)
Running time	127 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Sivappathigaram (transl. Red chapter) is a 2006 Indian Tamil-language vigilante action film written and directed by Karu Pazhaniappan. The film stars Vishal and Mamta Mohandas, while Raghuvaran, Manivannan, Upendra Limaye, Rajan P. Dev, and Ganja Karuppu play supporting roles. The film marks Mamta Mohandas's Tamil debut. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Vidyasagar, while S. Gopinath handled the cinematography and Suresh Urs handled the editing. The film released on 24 November 2006.^[1]

Former IAS officer and professor Dr. Elango (Raghuvaran) returns to his native village near Theni with his college-going daughter Charulatha (Mamta Mohandas). He has taken voluntary retirement from a college in Chennai and has come to live in his ancestral house. He plans to do research on folk songs and release the collection as a book. His former student Sathyamoorthy (Vishal) visits to assist him in this venture. Charu falls head over heels for Sathya, on keenly observing his intellect, humaneness, and social awareness.

Meanwhile, general elections are announced to the state legislature, and the parties start finalising the candidates for the constituencies. When the candidates start filing nominations, dreadful things happen. Some candidates from both major parties are murdered, and all the candidates get jittery. A lot of candidates withdraw from the fray fearing death. The parties are in a fix on what to do. The police is on the hunt for the killer. The election commission postpones the elections.

When the police tightens their noose and ties loose ends, the killer is traced. The trail leads to Sathya, and it is found that he is aided in this bloodshed by Elango. The police arrests Elango. At the same time, Charu reveals her mind to Sathya during their travel to Hyderabad. Sathya reveals his undercover deeds.

Three years ago, Satya was a final year management student in Elango's class. Satya's widowed father (Manivannan) also worked in the same college's canteen. When by-elections are announced for Chennai-Central constituency, Satya and his mates, under Elango's guidance, conduct an opinion-poll of the candidates as a field project. They announce the opinion results two days before polling, which said that the opposition's candidate will win. The election give the same result and the ruling party's candidate is angry at losing such an easy chance, and he plans to take revenge with help of the home minister. On the day of Satya's convocation, the police raid the college under the false pretense of looking for drugs. During the fight, Satya's father and around 30 students hide in the canteen. The ruling party candidate leaks cooking gas into the closed room and sets it on fire. All 31 people die, and the management reports it as a freak accident. These events force Satyamoorthy and Elango to resort to the task of cleansing the society of the current breed of dangerous, inhuman and selfish politicians during elections.

Later, Sathya escapes from the police's net and makes another attempt at the Home Minister in Madurai. Whether he succeeds in his attempts and was able to send out the message correctly to the people forms the rest of the story.

The soundtrack and background music have been composed by Vidyasagar.^[2] The audio was launched at Chennai on 24 October 2006 at Green Park Hotel.^[3][4]

Rediff.com rated the film 1/5, calling it "super-stupid".^[5] Nowrunning.com rated the film 2.5/5, writing "The movie is above average and a little more care on the narration style, the screenplay and the characterizations could have definitely made it a big blockbuster."^[6] Lajjavathi of Kalki wrote the director Karu Palaniappan did not understand whether he wanted to make a commercial film and made an art film or wanted to make an art film and made a commercial film. Half of this and half of that are mixed and tied together, but both do not feel complete.^[7] Malini Mannath of Chennai Online wrote "It's a film scripted and narrated with sensitivity and sensibility, with some meaningful lines thrown in, and some well-framed shots (Gopinath). Aesthetically packaged and classy, 'Sivappathikaram' is watchable fare, a stylised presenatation of a formula subject".^[8] Sify wrote "At best, Sivapathikaaram remains a turgid chronicle of our corrupt political system that leaves you with undeniably mixed feelings".^[9]

• Sivappathigaram at IMDb