The film is based out of a small town located in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. The town of Papanaasam is a quaint, peaceful town with blankets of greenery draping it. The story is of a mature, middle aged, cable man in this town named Suyambulingam (played by Kamal Haasan). Uneducated, but the smart, Suyambulingam often prides on the fact of being a self made man, repeating it to all who are his friends in the movie. We see Suyambulingam often hang out in a small restaurant owned by Bhai (played by M.S, Bhaskar).
This is the only let down in the movie. Suyambulingam is often shown as a miser but one can hardly understand why he visits and spends money in the restaurant daily. the first 20-30 minutes of the film are woeful and boring showing the Suyambu family consisting of his wife (Gautami) , and 2 kids. Suyambu's love for family is what the director has tried to depict in these minutes. The on-screen chemistry between Gautami and Kamal seems forced and its the sequences with his daughters which actually force a laugh from the audience's face. That being said, Kamal portrays his role of a miserly, middle class husband and dad to the full extent and his acting and dialogue delivery show why he is still the Ulaganayagan of this industry. The comic scenes in this movie, though few and far, are impeccably constructed and show Kamal's brilliant comic timing previously seen in the portrayal of the Telugu police officer Balaram Naidu in the film Dasavathaaram.
I would say that the actual story starts when Suyambu's daughter pleads with him to attend a nature's club excursion in her school. It is seen that when she is there she meets the son of the Inspector General of Police who comes across as a perverted, young and doped individual who finds solace in taking pictures of Girls. This guy is shown taking a video of Suyambu's daughter bathing and is shown to blackmail her regarding this video. the young girl afraid of its reach on the internet, conveys the blackmail to her mother Gautami. When the young boy asks to meet Suyambu's Daughter alone, she brings along Gautami and what ensues is a lot of begging on the part of Gautami and her daughter to prevent the leakage of the video. When he does not agree to do so, Suyambu's daughter tries to knock the phone of his hand and in doing so, inadvertently kills the adolescent lad. How the family hide the body of the boy, and how they escape from the police is what forms the rest of the story.
According to me, it is a beautifully scripted story with a nail biting finish. A rating of 4 would be fair with the length of the movie being the only real con of the story. A tighter plot and faster screenplay would have made this film as one of Kamal's classics.
