Mr. Airavata

Plot

The film opens with the chief minister and IG of Karnataka coming to the house of Vitta Gowda (Ananth Nag) to request him to send his grandson Airavata (Darshan) to duty as soon as possible. He agrees but with certain reasonable conditions. Outside, a reporter asks her senior the reason for such a fuss. The senior explains the story. 6 months earlier, Airavata had joined Bangalore police as the ACP. He brought over a big change to the crime filled city and slowly eradicated all signs of criminal activity. He brings up new rules that serve the public without consulting higher officials and does these through his own money. These rules cause huge losses to several criminals, mostly to Prathap Kale (Prakash Raj) who immediately calls upon an enmity with Airavata. During this while a reporter Priya (Urvashi Rautela) falls in love with Airavata, and is later shown to be the girl Airavata had saved previously from an accident, hence the reason for love. Despite this, Airavata does not reciprocate her feelings. During the preparations for a government event, Airavata is arrested by the force and is revealed to be a bogus officer. He reveals his story during an open court session. Airavata was a farmer who had gone to Bangalore to solve the problems of a few farmers. His sister Charu (Sindhu Lokanath) gets raped by their workers when she goes to plough the fields. A corrupt cop refused to take the family's complaint which results in Charu's suicide. Their friend Prakasa (Bullet Prakash) kills the inspector and is shot dead in the process. Airavata vows revenge and when Karnataka police gives a job opening in Bangalore, Airavata gets himself posted there by wrong means. The court declares Airavata innocent and sends him back to his village. On the request of the people, Airavata writes the civil service exam and is reposted as ACP. Now the story comes back to the present. The reporter is curious of what will be Airavata's next move. Airavata slowly begins to take down Prathap Kale's empire once more. He also accepts Priya's love. Towards the end, Prathap Kale kidnaps each and every police officer's daughters along with Priya intending to sell them abroad. Airavata arrives in the nook of time and saves them and kills Prathap Kale. At a felicitation ceremony, he submits his resignation form, saying that should crime rise again, then he will join the force once more. The film ends with Airavata and a child (Vineesh Darshan) saluting towards the screen.

Cast

Development

In mid February 2013, producer Sandesh Nagaraj of Sandesh Combines banner, who is also a politician, announced that he would produce a film starring Darshan and selected director A. P. Arjun upon his recommendation. It was reported that Darshan liked Arjun's work in both Ambari and Addhuri besides penning down lyrics for his own film Thangigagi. It was revealed that Darshan would be playing the role of a cop and further scripting was still in the beginning stages.

The film began production on 16 February 2013 at the Kanteerava Studios in Bangalore with the presence of former Chief Minister H. D. Kumaraswamy and actor V. Ravichandran. Titled as Airavata, the film was reported to have been lavishly invested by the producer and added that the shooting would not take place in Mysore as is the usual case with Darshan's films. However, the film's proceedings went on a very slow pace owing to the busy schedules of director Arjun and actor Darshan.

Casting

Actress Erica Fernandes was initially roped in to play the lead role opposite Darshan. She bagged this role even before the release of her maiden Kannada film Ninnindale's release. She was reportedly shuffling between the sets of this film and also Buguri simultaneously. However, due to under weight issue differences, Erica was out of the film .Reports indicated Rachita Ram would replace her for the role which found to be untrue. Finally, Arjun finalized Urvashi Rautela through Google where he and producer searched India's most beautiful girl and found her name and Urvashi Rautela's pictures. Also she was an apt choice to feature opposite Darshan because of her striking looks and great height.

Multilingual actor Prakash Raj was signed in to play the main antagonist opposite Darshan. It was also reported that Girish Karnad and Arundhati Nag would play the role of parents to Darshan's character while Bullet Prakash was also reportedly cast for an important supporting role. In early 2015, Darshan's seven-year-old son Vineesh was reportedly roped in to play a small character role alongside his father.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack is composed and written by V. Harikrishna and on 16 August 2015, the film's audio was launched