Por Thozhil

Por Thozhil is a 2023 Indian Tamil-language thriller film directed by Vignesh Raja in his directorial debut and written by Alfred Prakash. The film stars R. Sarathkumar, Ashok Selvan and Nikhila Vimal, with Sarath Babu, Nizhalgal Ravi, Sunil Sukhada and Santhosh Keezhattoor in supporting roles. The music was composed by Jakes Bejoy, while the cinematography and editing were handled by Kalaiselvan Sivaji and Sreejith Sarang.

Por Thozhil was released theatrically on 9 June 2023 to positive reviews from critics and became a commercial success at the box office.

Plot
In 2010, Prakash, a newly appointed DSP trainee, is assigned to work with SP Loganathan by ADGP Mahendran. Loganathan reluctantly agrees to mentor him, along with the new technical assistant Veena. From Chennai, the trio set off to Tiruchirappalli to investigate the gruesome murder of a young girl in deep woods. The doctor concludes that the victim was strangulated from the front with an iron wire, kneeling, with her hair pulled back and tied to the hand. A hematoma on her neck reveals that the victim was knocked at specific pressure points on her to make her unconscious, following which she was kidnapped. The peculiarity of the case makes Loganathan anticipate a series of murders.

As predicted, a few more young women are killed in the same manner and their corpses are left in the woods with one of them being the daughter of a police constable. None of the victims had any connection or similarity except their ages (early-mid 20s) and the fact that they were killed in the same manner and abandoned. Over the course of their investigation, Loganathan infers from the modus operandi and the killer's choice of random women, that he must be a psychopath with inferiority complex, who compensates his low self-esteem by putting his victims in a submissive position with their eyes gazing right into his eyes.

Upon further investigation, they arrive at the conclusion that the murders are copycat serial killings of women that happened between 1973 and 1979. In disguise, Loganathan visits the house of Inspector John Sebastian as his acquaintance, who investigated the initial murders in the 1970s, while Prakash visits the district library to find out the patrons who read books on pressure points as books must have been the only source of knowledge for pressure points back in 1970s for a layman. Loganathan is received by John's son Kennedy instead, who informs that his father died long ago. He also tells him that he has a son Freddy, who studies in New Delhi and that his wife died recently. While offering tea to Loganathan, he makes the observation that Kennedy has obsessive–compulsive disorder as he demands perfection and order. His physique and obsession to keep things in his house neat and organised raise suspicion that Kennedy must be the serial killer.

Prakash informs Loganathan that Kennedy is the name of the killer, as that is the name he finds on the readers' list of a book named Vital Points. To find substantial evidence, Prakash also takes the nearby house for rent to spy on Kennedy in close proximity. However, they are not able to find anything conclusive or incriminating on Kennedy to connect to the recent murders. Meanwhile, an unnamed suspect is arrested by the rival local police force and the local media reveal that he has confessed to being the serial killer. The next day, to everyone's shock, he commits suicide. However, Prakash and Loganathan refuse to believe that he is the actual killer and focus all of their attention on Kennedy. One night, when Prakash is following Kennedy at a supermarket, he is caught by Kennedy, who insists on having Prakash over for dinner that night. As Kennedy is cooking, Prakash sneaks around into a locked dark room, which got his attention when he sneaked into his house earlier to collect evidence. He finds a photograph of a victim tucked behind the frame of a photo hanging on a wall.

Kennedy sneaks up behind and strikes Prakash in the pressure point on his neck, stunning him. Loganathan rings the door, puts Kennedy at gunpoint and rescues Prakash. Kennedy confesses to the murder he did in the 1970s as a teenager. His father, John was a pedant and abusive man who beats Kennedy to keep things clean, neat and organised and always expected perfection from him in everything. Kennedy gets caught smoking by his teacher and the latter threatens him to inform his father about his smoking habit. To stop her, Kennedy attacks her from behind and ends up killing her accidentally. Reluctant, Kennedy scrupulously cleans up all evidences and disposes the body of his victim. This murder case keeps his father busy and frustrated, who investigates the case and Kennedy gets a temporary relief from his father for few days. His father starts to beat him again once he closes the case as 'cold'.

Kennedy concludes that the only way he could save himself from his abusive father was to keep him engaged with murder cases and continued murdering random innocent women. Kennedy promises the duo that he has not murdered anyone since then and kept all this as a secret. Kennedy also confesses that he felt extremely averse towards the faces of his victims. Prakash realises that Kennedy does not suit the recent serial killer's profile. On further interrogation, he confesses that a few months back, he was attacked and blindfolded by an unknown assailant, who said he knew him since the 1970s, along with his secret and forced him to reveal his pressure point attacks. All he could remember from the faceless assailant was his car had a peculiar reverse gear alarm, sounding similar to a firing sound of toy rifle. Loganathan still wants Kennedy to be tried for his past crimes, but Kennedy says that Freddy should not know that his father was once a serial killer. He pushes Prakash and Loganathan from the room, locks himself up, turns on the gas cylinder, resulting in an explosion in which he dies instantly so that Freddy can receive insurance money.

Meanwhile, Prakash recollects hearing the same alarm tone from an auto-mechanic shop, where he found the scooter of one of the victims. He rushes off to the mechanic, who says that the car belongs to an NGO worker named Muthu Selvan and takes them to his house. They break open the locked house and search the rooms to find the latest victim's photographs. They discover that Muthu Selvan is a large man who had been harassed by his unfaithful wife, who would bring her lovers to the house when he was there, and that it seemed at one point that he killed his wife and her boyfriend out of fury. As his wife has a dimple on her cheek, Muthu Selvan targets women with dimples. They also find a series of bills from a nearby cafe shop. The duo immediately visit the cafe shop and learn that Muthu Selvan has been visiting the shop for last 2-3 days and would always seat on a chair near a glass window and stare at a poster of a singer put at the entrance of the opposite hotel.

Loganathan immediately rushes to the hotel room of the singer to find that the singer is safe and secure. Loganathan realises that she has just reached the city the same day morning and she is not the target. Prakash in the meantime, observes that the hotel of Veena is also visible, which strikes him that she too, has a dimple. A few days back, they had a conversation on the roof, from which the cafe was very visible. He realises that she is the target, not the singer. In the hotel corridor, Veena meets Muthu Selvan, who feigns choking and begs her to fetch medicines from his car outside the hotel. When Veena is near the car, Prakash calls and warns her that she is the next target of Muthu Selvan. She suddenly looks to find Muthu Selvan standing beside her, smiling creepily. He knocks her out by hitting the pressure point on her neck and takes her away in his car.

Loganathan and Prakash chase. They are alerted to Muthu Selvan's location by the sudden flight of a flock of birds which get disturbed and rush to save Veena. As Prakash is untying Veena, Muthu Selvan stabs Loganathan from behind and makes him immobile. He then takes Loganathan's pistol to shoot Prakash, but finds that the pistol has a stovepipe malfunction. Prakash taunts him and he gives in by throwing the pistol at him, who catches it and releases the jam, shooting Muthu Selvan in his eye.

A few days later, Prakash gifts his music player to a boy from his neighbourhood, whose parents constantly fight with each other. Prakash enters the house to speak with the parents and comes out to get back in their car. The mother of the boy then hugs her son lovingly, consoling him. Loganathan watches all this and asks Prakash what he said to the parents. He told them that if they behave responsibly, then their duties will be reduced as the mindless bad parenting results in children having spoiled futures like the people they have encountered.

Production
Por Thozhil is the directorial debut of Vignesh Raja, who co-wrote the script with Alfred Prakash. Vignesh initially planned a film where an aspiring filmmaker teams up with a senior police officer to research ideas for a crime thriller film. However, following the release of Jigarthanda (2014), Vignesh and Alfred made changes to the story to avoid similarities, and completed the first draft. After the release of Ratsasan (2018), which Vignesh also felt was too similar, the duo made further changes and completed the script. The film's title "Por Thozhil " was derived from the line "Por Thozhil Pazhagu" (Learn the art of war) from Subramania Bharati's poem, "Puthiya Aathi Chuvadi". The film was produced by Sameer Nair and Deepak Segal under the banner of Applause Entertainment, while it was co-produced by Mukesh R. Mehta, C. V. Sarathi, Poonam Mehra, and Sandeep Mehra under E4 Experiments and Eprius Studio. Cinematography was done by Kalaiselvan Sivaji, and Sreejith Sarang handled the editing. The film has no songs, and the background score was composed by Jakes Bejoy. The film was shot mostly at night; filming for the night scenes lasted 36 working days.

Theatrical
Por Thozhil released theatrically on 9 June 2023.

Home media
The digital streaming rights to Por Thozhil were acquired by SonyLIV. The film began streaming there from 11 August 2023.

Critical response
Por Thozhil received positive reviews from critics and audience.

Thinkal Menon of OTTplay gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote, "The film has a tightly-woven screenplay that aids in offering edge-of-the-seat moments, but the manner in which the investigation unfolds doesn't boast of novelty." Janani K of India Today gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Por Thozhil is one of the most interesting thrillers in recent times. It is a film that deserves to be devoured in theatres."

Kirubhakar Purushothaman of The Indian Express gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Despite following all the tropes of a buddy cop movie, debutant Vignesh Raja has come up with an enjoyable genre film that manages to hold your attention throughout." Ashwin Ram of the Moviecrow gave it 3.25 out of 5 stars and wrote, "A whodunit murder mystery that flows in the typical structure of the thriller genre films which we have seen before. The interesting screenplay with unpredictable twists, uniquely satisfying backstory and a gripping finale puts up a good show."

Gopinath Rajendran of The Hindu wrote, "Debutant director Vignesh Raja has pulled off a phenomenal job, making the minor mishaps almost feel like a product of nitpicking." Sowmya Rajendran of The News Minute gave it 4 out of 5 stars, noting the message of the film is "subtle and allows us to arrive at the realization instead of drilling it into our brains."

Box office
The film grossed ₹3.5 crores in the Kerala states within 10 days of its release. Its closing worldwide collection stands at ₹50 crore.