Lal Salaam (2024 film)

Lal Salaam is a 2024 Indian Tamil-language sports action film directed by Aishwarya Rajinikanth and produced by Subaskaran Allirajah under Lyca Productions. The film stars Rajinikanth in a extended cameo role, alongside Vishnu Vishal and Vikranth as main protagonists, with an ensemble supporting cast including Vignesh, Livingston, Senthil, Jeevitha, K. S. Ravikumar and Thambi Ramaiah.

The film was officially announced in November 2022. Principal photography commenced in March 2023. It was shot sporadically in several legs, with filming locations including Chennai, Mumbai, Pondicherry, and wrapped by early-August 2023. The film has music composed by A. R. Rahman, cinematography handled by Vishnu Rangasamy and editing by B. Pravin Baaskar.

Lal Salaam was released theatrically on 9 February 2024 in theatres. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a huge box-office bomb earning ₹36 crore against the budget of ₹80-90 crore.

Plot
Thirunavukarasu "Thiru" and Shamsuddin are talented and brilliant cricket players from Murarbad, a village where Hindus and Muslims co-exist harmoniously. Despite their religious differences, they live happily. Thiru's father, Manickam and Shamsuddin's father, D. G. Mohideen aka Mohideen Bhai, are good friends who are accustomed to seeing their sons engage in physical confrontations since childhood.

Parallelly, local politicians plan to incite communal riots in Murarbad to capitalise on the upcoming elections. One of the politicians son, Raj takes the sole task of exploiting Thiru and Shamsuddin’s rivalry under the guise of a cricket match. In a fit of rage, Thiru injures Shamsuddin’s right hand during a match, sparking a serious conflict between the Muslims and Hindus in Murrabad. Raj, also hailing from an upper-caste family begins troubling the lower-caste families, for political gain, by disrupting the Thiruvizha and confiscates the Thayr (temple cart). Meanwhile, Thiru is facing his own fate where the fellow townsmen and his family disown him. He also faces threats from Mohideen's men and escapes.

With some guidance from his friends and mentor, he plays cricket for the surrounding villages and wins, while also earning some money for the thayr funding. In need of another ₹1.5 lakh rupees, he and his friends go to Bombay relying on donations, where they get into the centre of another religious conflict and Thiru ends up saving Shamsuddin unknowingly, thus ending their feud. Mohideen then decides to give the additional funding for their own Thayr. However, a jealous Raj destroys it in retaliation. In the end it is revealed that it was Raj who made sure Shamsuddin injured his hand in the clash in Murarbad. Hearing this, his pregnant wife, Ammani, threatens him to surrender to the police for his criminal acts or lose their unborn child. Finally, the Muslim community in Murarbad helps the Hindu community with their Thiruvizha and the harmony is achieved once again.

Development and casting
In October 2022, Rajinikanth, who had signed a two-deal film with production house Lyca Productions after the success of 2.0 (2018), was reported to have signed his daughter Aishwarya Rajinikanth to direct the latter film in the deal, with the former film being Vettaiyan. Soon after, Aishwarya reportedly made a new plan with Atharvaa starring in the lead role, while Rajinikanth would play an extended cameo role. On 5 November, the production house made a public announcement, confirming the project. The official title, Lal Salaam, was revealed and a muhurat puja was held the same day in Chennai. Instead of Atharvaa, Vishnu Vishal and Vikranth were announced to play the lead roles. Jeevitha made her comeback into acting after thirty-three years through this film.

Filming
The principal photography commenced on 7 March 2023 in Chennai, while a muhurat puja was held in December 2022. The first schedule in Chennai was wrapped up in April. The second schedule in Mumbai began in May. Rajinikanth joined the schedule that month. Former cricketer Kapil Dev also joined the schedule that month. In June, moved the team to Pondicherry. Rajinikanth had wrapped up his portions by 12 July. The team completed shooting the second schedule in July. Vishnu also wrapped up his portions by 5 August. The principal photography wrapped up by 7 August. A hard disk containing 21 days worth footage went missing during post-production works and, unable to reshoot all the missing scenes, the team reshot only a few and included them into the final cut.

Music
The film score and soundtrack are composed by A. R. Rahman, in his maiden feature film collaboration with Aishwarya Rajinikanth.

In November 2023, it was announced that the audio rights for the film were purchased by Sony Music India. The first single titled "Ther Thiruvizha" was released on 18 December 2023. The second single titled "Ae Pulla" sung by Sid Sriram was released on 15 January 2024 coinciding with Pongal. However, Sid Sriram was replaced by Nakul Abhyankar in the film version of the song.

Rahman revealed that one of the songs in the film, titled "Thimiri Yezhuda" which are sung using the voices of late singers Bamba Bakya and Shahul Hameed was made possible via artificial intelligence technology, thus making it the first Indian song to recreate a deceased singer's voice.

The audio launch was held at Sri Leo Muthu Indoor Stadium on 26 January 2024.

Marketing
The theaterical teaser of the film was released on 12 November 2023, on the occasion of Diwali. On the occasion of Rajinikanth's birthday on 12 December 2023, a promo highlighting his character of Moideen Bhai was released.

Theatrical
Initially, the film was scheduled for theatrical release on 12 January 2024, coinciding with Pongal. However in a turn of events, the production house announced that the film will instead release at 9 February 2024 to account for the delay in post-production work and the release of Mission: Chapter 1 (2024).

Home media
The satellite rights were sold to Sun TV (South Indian languages).

Critical response
Lal Salaam received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics.

Roopa Radhakrishnan of The Times of India gave 3/5 stars and stated "But, he doesn't have to take the burden of selling the film alone, as the cast is unanimously good,especially a wonderful Vishnu Vishal". Latha Srinivasan of Hindustan Times stated "Aishwarya Rajinikanth’s Lal Salaam is a social drama with a message. And the audience will love Rajinikanth as Moideen bhai and hopefully, they’ll take back home and to heart what he says on screen. Humanity above all". Janani K of India Today gave 2.5/5 stars and stated "While the first half of the film is uneven due to forced staging, the messaging comes together in the second half, leaving viewers with a satisfying aftertaste".

Ram Venkat Srikar of Film Companion stated "The social message is important, no doubt about it, but it's also important that the strong message exists in an equally strong film. That's where Lal Salaam misses the mark". Kirubhakar Purushothaman of The New Indian Express gave 2.5/5 stars and stated "Lal Salaam is a winner if films are supposed to be noble message churning machines. But if cinema is considered to be much more than the takeaways and moral of the story, we only have a middling film with a topical and much-needed message for the country". Sudhir Srinivasan of Cinema Express gave 2/5 stars and stated that,"But these are fleeting pleasures, and a film, in which Rajinikanth seems quite willing to shed his star image in pursuit of story-related pleasures, in pursuit of progressive politics, deserves to be more emotional, and more powerful".

Bhuvanesh Chandar of The Hindu stated "Lal Salaam is the kind of film you wish you liked for how noble its intentions are. But that’s all you are left to feel for a film that doesn’t try enough to give you more, anything refreshing or anything novel".