The Tiger (2005 film)


The Tiger is a 2005 Indian Malayalam-language thriller film directed by Shaji Kailas and written by B. Unnikrishnan, starring Suresh Gopi, Siddique, Saikumar and Rajan P. Dev. The film was one the highest-grossing Malayalam films of the year.

Plot

A container packed with fake currency is stopped at the check post by Thomas Kurien, an honest senior customs officer along with Rajath Naidu, the city commissioner of police. But he is shocked to find out that Rajath Naidu himself is a part of the gang, who shoots down Kurien to save himself. A few months later, Jnanashekhara Varma, DG of Vigilance Department makes a controversial press conference, in which he alleges the role of hawala transactions in the sudden rise in the crimes in the state. His statements were directly pointed at seniors in the state cabinet and police department. Varma is summoned by the Chief Minister in the presence of John Varghese, Rajya Sabha MP, and is warned of serious actions, unless he gives a proper explanation in the next couple of days. Instead of falling in lines of CM, Varma threatens him of further revelations in coming days.
The next morning Varma is found dead in his bedroom. John Varghese, an MP with strong foreign relations is also involved in several hawala dealings taking place in the state including terror activities. Senior police officer and DIG of Crime Branch, Chandrashekhar IPS, is appointed to solve the mystery of Varma's death. Chandrasekhar is assisted by Joseph Pothen and Sudev Sachidanand. In the meantime, Suhara Ahmed, a young journalist along with her friend Kishore is found missing. She is believed to have certain sensational information regarding minister Vakkachan.
Chandrasekhar meets Vivekam Ahmed Sahib, her father, who leads him to the personal computer of Suhara, which sheds light to certain truths. One day, Suhara is found in midst of a forest, critically wounded. Chandrasekhar gets her hospitalized, but her life is targeted many times. Chandrasekhar finds out shocking information regarding the anti-national activities of Vakachan along with John Varghese from the video tapes of Suhara. Vakkachan is forced to resign from the cabinet and is arrested by Chandrasekhar, who then follows John Varghese. He follows Varghese to the sea port, from where he is planning to escape to Turkey. But, just minutes before he leaves coast, Varghese is stopped by Chandrasekhar, who also finds out that his subordinate Sudev Sachidanand is none other than Musafir, an ISI agent who is also the murderer of Varma and Kishore, the friend of Suhara.
When Sudev tries to shoot Chandrashekhar, he finds that the gun Chandrashekhar gave him had no bullets. Chandrashekhar then reveals that he suspected the presence of a traitor when they were attacked while transporting Suhara to the hospital. Since Sudev was the only outsider in the team, he enquired about his track record, and found that Sudev was present every time the presence of Musafir was detected. In order to get concrete evidence against Sudev, Chandrashekhar secretly entered his house and managed to decrypt the terrorist plans of Sudev and Varghese, stored in Sudev's hard disk and CD's with the help of experts, thus foiling all their plans to turn Kerala into a safe haven for terrorism. Chandrasekhar then shoots down both Musafir and John Varghese.

Cast

This was second film by B. Unnikrishnan for Shaji Kailas. They had earlier joined for Shivam, starring Biju Menon in 2002. Senior Congress leader Raj Mohan Unnithan made his debut in acting as chief minister in this film.

Reception

This film was well received by critics and audience, and was appreciated for its fast camera movements and technical aspects. This film also played a big role in the change of story telling in Malayalam cinema and well received at box office.