Amaidhipadai

Amaidhipadai is a 1994 Indian Tamil-language political satire film, written and directed by Manivannan. The film Sathyaraj (in a dual role), Ranjitha, Kasthuri and Sujatha. It revolves around a politician who builds his career through unethical means, while his son, an honest law enforcer, seeks to take him down.

Amaidhipadai was released on 13 January 1994. It went on to run more than 25 weeks and was a silver jubilee hit. The film has since developed a strong cult following. It was remade in Telugu as M. Dharmaraju M.A. (1994), and in Hindi as Jallaad (1995). A spiritual successor, Nagaraja Cholan MA, MLA was released in 2013, with Sathyaraj returning.

Plot
In 1968, Amavasai is a lazy and transient man, but he is certainly shrewd. He gets acquainted with politician Manimaran "Mani", an MLA of the Palladam constituency belonging to the ruling party. Amavasai helps Mani with some petty tasks during his election campaign. He later becomes Mani's close associate. Meanwhile, Amavasai lusts after a village belle Thayamma and manages to entrap her with false promises of love. One day, he drugs and rapes Thayamma.

During the prepoll events of the 1971 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election, Mani's party refuses to give him the ticket. Mani instructs Amavasai to stand for the MLA election as an independent candidate to teach his party a lesson. Amavasai campaigns hard and also renames himself Nagaraja Cholan (lying about being a Chola descendant) to elevate his social status. Amavasai wins the election by a huge margin, while Mani's party manages to retain power with huge majority. Amavasai rejoins the party immediately and his behaviour also changes as he grows more arrogant much to Mani's shock. After his electoral win, he forces Mani to become his crony.

Amavasai, knowing that a local zamindar is looking for a groom for his daughter, Sivakami, quickly arranges to be married to her as he wants to become rich and respected. He abandons the now pregnant Thayamma. Distraught over this betrayal, Thayamma and her parents call for a panchayat, where Amavasai successfully defends himself. Thayamma's family move out of the village to avoid humiliation. Amavasai marries Sivakami and gets the latter's palace as dowry. The same day, Thayamma gives birth to a boy and dies. Sivakami vows to be celibate as Amavasai refused to adopt Thayamma's infant son.

Over the next 24 years, Amavasai grows into a highly influential and corrupt politician. He builds a strong political network through shortcuts. He has been re-elected to his position as MLA for five elections. To remain in power, he kills anyone who comes in his way. His ultimate goal is to become Chief Minister where he will have all the power to do whatever he wants, and no one can stop him.

Raised by his maternal grandparents in a village afar, Thayamma's son, Thangavel becomes a Reserve Police constable. Thangavel is betrothed to a twelfth grade girl, Kuyili. They fall in love, but during their engagement event, a dispute arises as people ask about Thangavel's father's identity, and the wedding is cancelled. An enraged Thangavel asks his grandparents about his father, but they remain silent. He accuses his mother of being characterless to which his grandfather slaps him and tells him about Amavasai. Upon learning the truth about his father and his corruption which led to the betrayal and death of his mother, Thangavel seeks revenge.

Simultaneously, the state assembly is about to be dissolved earlier to hold the general elections. Amavasai realises that even if the party nominates him, the voters will not support him as they are fed up with his corrupted ways. He instigates a caste-based riot in his constituency and pretends to stop it, so that the people will re-elect him. A police inspector, who belongs to the Dalit caste is burnt alive by Amavasai, and the riot intensifies.

Thangavel is posted as the riot police's head constable where he has to protect Amavasai. Thangavel saves Amavasai from an assassination attempt. Later, he goes to Amavasai's house and reveals his identity. He challenges his father that he will stop all his illegal activities and kill him. Amavasai brushes off his threats.

Thangavel is transferred to regular police and gets posted as a Sub-inspector in the same area. Thangavel meets Sivakami and realises she is a good woman. He begins to see her as a motherly figure in his life. They decide to plot Amavasai's downfall together. Thangavel informs the CBI of Amavasai's activities while Sivakami plans to testify against Amavasai. Amavasai learns of this and plans to kill both. Thangavel fails to stop Amavasai's henchman from murdering Sivakami. During her funeral, Amavasai feigns grief which provokes Thangavel into beating up Amavasai in public. Thangavel is arrested.

A crooked tantric advises Amavasai to get remarried to a young girl to ensure his re-election. He kidnaps Kuyili and her younger sister. He forces Kuyili into agreeing to marry him by threatening to kill her sister. He then takes part in a tantric wedding ritual. Thangavel escapes from prison, reaches his father's house, rescues the girls and stops the ritual. After fighting Amavasai and his henchmen, Thangavel holds Amavasai at gunpoint. Amavasai begs Thangavel to spare his life but, remembering all the atrocities committed by his father, including the deaths of his mother and stepmother, Thangavel shoots Amavasai. In his dying moments, Amavasai throws flowers on Thangavel and Kuyili, and wishes them well.

Production
Sathyaraj was enjoying good success as a lead actor, when his friend, director Manivannan narrated the script of Amaidhipadai to him. He initially considered rejecting the script as he was not interested in playing a negative role. But after being impressed by the narration, he accepted to do the film. While filming the scene where Amavasai (Sathyaraj) rapes Thayamma (Kasthuri), Sathyaraj acted carefully to prioritise the actress' comfort; the scene took four hours to shoot.

Soundtrack
The music was composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The song "Anjugajam Kanchipattu" which features in Manivannan's later film Raasamahan (1994) was originally composed for this film.

Release
Amaidhipadai was released on 13 January 1994, the week of Pongal. Despite facing competition from other Pongal releases like Mahanadhi, Sethupathi IPS and Veetla Visheshanga, it emerged a major success, running for over 25 weeks in theatres, thus becoming a silver jubilee film.

Critical reception
Malini Mannath of The Indian Express lauded Sathyaraj's performance as Amavasai, adding, "The scenes of the steady rise of the sly cunning man have been well built up by Manivannan. The dialogues are provocative and delivered in his inimitable way by Sathyaraj". K. Vijiyan of New Straits Times wrote "A pretty much straight-forward story but it is Manivannan's super handling and interesting dialogues that place this movie above the average". Thulasi of Kalki felt the film's story was similar to Mr. Bharath (1986), only the screenplay and dialogues were different, praised the performances of Sathyaraj and Manivannan but felt Sundarrajan and Ranjitha were underutilised and found stunts as childish and also there were too many songs but the background music was superb.

Legacy
Amaidhipadai attained cult status in Tamil cinema. Following Manivannan's death in June 2013, The Hindu wrote that this film "set the standards for political satire" in the industry. It was remade in Telugu as M. Dharmaraju M.A. (1994), and in Hindi as Jallaad (1995). Manivannan directed a spiritual successor titled Nagaraja Cholan MA, MLA (2013) with Sathyaraj reprising the role of Amavasai. Sathyaraj again reprised the role in Tughlaq Durbar (2021).