Arasatchi

Arasatchi is a Tamil language film released in 2004. The film was directed by N Maharajan. The film starred Arjun, Lara Dutta and Raghuvaran in the lead roles, Vivek as the comedian, and Lakshmi and Manivannan in supporting roles. The film's music was composed by Harris Jayaraj. The film was released in September 2004. It was dubbed into Telugu as "Judgement" and in Hindi as "Ghatak The Destroyer".

Plot

Anandaraj, a lawyer who argues for rapists and murderers, is killed by a cricket ball hit by Siddharth (Arjun Sarja).

Siddharth is a GM of a five-star hotel owned by S. Ve. Shekher. Shekher’s daughter is Lara (Lara Dutta), who is introduced with a song. She comes from abroad to join her dad’s hotel but only as a trainee under the macho GM. Within no time, Lara is in love with Siddharth.

It’s now time for duets. Lara’s friend Prakash (Karan) is a campaigner of public cause. His efforts lead to a brothel raid and a minister getting arrested. The minister’s goons bump off Prakash and Siddharth is an eyewitness. Siddharth refuses to testify and Lara walks out on him. Charan Raj pleads for the killer and lets him off. Siddharth bumps off Charan Raj. Nassar, a military officer is a witness to the murder. Nassar even postpones his heart operation until the killer is nabbed. Siddharth now tells his story of why he is on a hunt of the lawyers who plead for the bad guys. Nassar gives up his mission.

Next Devan takes a brief for a rapist and he too is killed. Next is the turn of Raghuvaran who comes from Delhi. The surprise element is that Raghuvaran is Siddharth's brother-in-law. Raghuvaran’s wife is Siddharth's long-lost sister. Now the brother-sister sentiment comes into play. Finally the story ends with Raghuvaran being shot dead by Siddharth in the court premises. The police open fire and bystanders form a human wall and get shot at. Siddharth tells the TV crew about how his mission has spread to the masses.

Cast

Production

After the success of Vallarasu Maharajan was supposed to direct Vijaykanth in another project but later got dropped and Maharajan went on to remake Vallarasu in Hindi as Indian with Sunny Deol.^[1] Meanwhile, Maharajan announced his next project Arasatchi with Arjun playing the lead role. Miss Universe 2000 Lara Dutta made her acting debut in Tamil with this film.^[2] The film boasts of 14 villains played by Raghuvaran, Karan, Anandaraj, Nassar, M. N. Nambiar, Ponnambalam, Delhi Ganesh, Mansoor Ali Khan, Devan, Rajan P. Dev, and Manivannan among others. Uma, Abitha, Vindhya and P. Vasu play crucial roles in the film.

The filming was held at Le Royal Meridian Hotel, Chennai and the songs were picturised at locations in London, New Zealand and Canada.^[3]

The movie was completed in 2003 but got delayed due to financial problems and finally released in 2004,^[4] in between production delays Maharajan finished Anjaneya with Ajith.

Release

The satellite rights of the film were secured by Raj TV. The film was given an "A" certificate by the Indian Censor Board. Before release, poster featuring tagline "When Justice Fails" created controversy which caused a lawyer to file a case citing that the film would portray lawyers in bad light. After one week, case was finally won.^[5][6]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack and background score was composed by Harris Jayaraj. Lyrics written by Na. Muthukumar, Thamarai, Viveka & Snehan.^[7]

References