Theeradha Vilaiyattu Pillai

Plot

Karthik (Vishal Krishna) is a lazy, jobless, upper middle-class guy and the only son of his father who is a bank manager (T. S. B. K. Mouli), hanging around always with his friends, an auto driver Kumar (Santhanam), a tea-shop owner Shekar (Mayilsamy) and a traffic constable Vishnu (Sathyan). Over-ambitious in his life, he always wants the best of everything in his life, from pens and clothes to every other accessories, and has made it a rule to try out everything before zeroing in on one. Now wanting to choose his best life partner, he applies the same method and decides to select three girls, whom he would romance at the same time and make to fall in love with him, then reject two of them and finally marry the third one.

He comes across Jyothi (Tanushree Dutta), an athlete, living in the poorer area of Chennai, who has reservations against men and slaps a guy for touching her inappropriately and is Karthik's first choice. Karthik later attends a marriage, where he meets Priya (Sarah-Jane Dias), a girl who strongly believes in traditional and cultural values and has the policy of loving and marrying only one boy in her life, Karthik's second candidate. The third one Karthik selects is Tejaswini (Neetu Chandra), a rich and arrogant girl, heir to Rs. 1,500 crores, who once had a failed love attempt in her life. Karthik enters their lives, woos them with lies and finally wins their hearts. The girls don't know the fact that Karthik is romancing three girls simultaneously and entirely trust him.

One day, thanks to her caring and understanding father (Jayaprakash), who doesn't want his daughter to sustain one more love failure, Tejaswini gets to know about Karthik's plans and intentions and confronts him. Karthik dumps her and continues to romance Jyothi and Priya, while Tejaswini vows to take revenge on him. Without revealing her own and Karthik's true identity and intentions, she befriends the other two girls and gives advice to each, how to quicken the progress to get married soon, trying to put Karthik under pressure and blow his cover. Soon Jyothi gets to know the truth, wherefore he also rejects Jyothi and settles down with Priya as his future wife, who was responsible for Karthik's change of mind as he has now learnt the value of true love and realizes his mistakes.

However, as Jyothi's brother, Anbalazhagan (Prakash Raj), a rowdy confronts Karthik that he has betrayed Jyothi, Karthik himself reveals the truth about himself, his intentions and the other girls to Priya, who was with him. Downheartedly she leaves Karthik, who is being beaten up by Anbalazhagan and his gang. Karthik then causes a traffic accident, getting himself tangled and injured in the accident, and gets admitted in a hospital, where Dr.Ramya (Sneha) comes for his treatment. He pretends to have lost his memory due to the accident in order to arouse compassion in Priya, eventually indeed succeeding in his plan as Priya returns and reunites with him, believing that he has forgotten the past and would turn over a new life.

Cast

Development

In February 2009, it was reported, that Thiru, who assisted director A. Rajasekhar in the 2008 police story Sathyam, that also starred Vishal Krishna would direct Vishal after the actor had completed his Thoranai. The film was to be produced by Ramesh Babu, who earlier produced Vijay's blockbuster film Pokkiri. However, as the producer later walked out of the project, Vishal's brother Vikram Krishna along with his wife Sriya Reddy eventually took up the project and decided to produce it under their home banner G K Film Corporation.

The film, during pre-production was billed up to be a remake of the 2007 Hindi film Bachna Ae Haseeno, which also starred three actresses in lead roles, but the claim proved to be false. Vishal also denied this, stating that the script is original. In January 2010, the film's distribution rights were acquired by Sun Pictures, which started its promotion campaign on 2 February 2010, ten days prior to the film's theatrical release.

Casting

After Vishal was confirmed as the lead actor in the film, Thiru and Vishal were looking for three actresses to play the lead fimale roles. Several actresses including Bipasha Basu, Reemma Sen, Priyamani, Tamannaah Bhatia and Shriya Saran were approached or even confirmed, before ultimately opting out again. Finally, Bollywood actress Neetu Chandra, who starred in the horror film Yavarum Nalam opposite Madhavan and another Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta, a former Miss India Universe, making her debut in the Tamil film industry, were confirmed for the roles. For the third female role, a newcomer Sarah-Jane Dias, a former Miss India World, was signed. Additionally, reports claimed that the film would also have two lead actresses appearing in guest roles as well. In December 2009, Sneha was roped in to appear in one of the two cameo roles, whilst the other actress' identity was not revealed until the film's release.

Filming

The shooting started on 3 August and was held in several locations as Hyderabad, the Maldives and Kochi. The title song of the film was shot in Mumbai at sets and choreographed by Bosco-Caesar, a popular choreographer duo that has worked for over 300 films in Bollywood, made their debut in Tamil with this film. For the same song, which was picturized in Vishal and the three leading actresses, Neetu Chandra is said to have soaked in a bathtub full of red chillies, which is considered one of the highlights of the entire film. Other songs were filmed in Australia and New Zealand. Furthermore, other songs were shot across Australia, in both urban and natural backgrounds.

Soundtrack

Film score and soundtrack are composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The album was released on 16 December 2009 at Devi Theatres which Sify called the "grandest affair of the season". Initially actors Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth were said to the chief guests of the function, which, however, turned out to be untrue.

The album features five songs plus one introduction track by composer Yuvan Shankar Raja, while an additional song, not included in the soundtrack release, featured in the film as part of the film score. Lyrics were penned by Pa. Vijay and Vaali.

Not in the soundtrack

Other music featured in the film includes:

1. Theriyamale, composed and performed by Yuvan Shankar Raja

Reception

The general consensus was that the character of Karthik displayed male chauvinism. Santhanam's comedy track was well appreciated in the movie. Sify Movies gave the movie a more lenient review,.