Saamy

Saamy ( God) is a 2003 Indian Tamil-language action film directed by Hari and produced by Pushpa Kandasamy under the banner of Kavithalayaa Productions and presented by K. Balachander. The film stars Vikram in the lead role, alongside Trisha, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Vijayakumar, Ramesh Khanna and Vivek in supporting roles. The music was composed by Harris Jayaraj, while the cinematography and editing were handled by Priyan and V. T. Vijayan respectively.

Saamy was released on 1 May 2003 and became a commercial blockbuster at the box office. The film was remade in Telugu as Lakshmi Narasimha (2004), in Kannada as Ayya (2005), in Bengali as Barood (2004) and in Hindi as Policegiri (2013). Along with Kaakha Kaakha, the film started a trend of cop films in Tamil cinema. A sequel titled Saamy Square was released in 2018, but the sequel became a box office bomb.

Plot
Aarusaamy alias Saamy arrives in Tirunelveli city market as a drunk goon and wanders around the city for two days, where he learns about the socio-political situation. Saamy witnesses a pickpocketer in the guise of a cop trying to extort money from a person, and he thrashes him. The police arrive at the scene and Saamy reveals himself as the new DCP of Tirunelveli while ordering the police to arrest the swindler posing as a cop. Saamy later assembles the police force and rules out their procedures so that they can do whatever they wish, provided the public and the innocent are not harmed in the process. He also tells them to arrest any thug without second thoughts.

Due to Saamy's administration, the crime rate in Tirunelveli has decreased. At the outset, Saamy pretends to be a corrupt cop by accepting bribes from Perumal Pichai, an influential and corrupt politician, under the condition that his illegal activities will not be monitored while advising him to move his liquor stores elsewhere to avoid disturbance to the public. Perumal accepts, merely out of an assumption that Saamy belongs to his caste. Saamy falls in love with Bhuvana, a college-going Brahmin girl. Bhuvana's father Srinivasan is a government officer leading a noble life. Saamy and Bhuvana meet each other when he leaves with Inspector Punctuality Paramasivam in search of a home for rent.

Bhuvana misinterprets Saamy and Paramasivam as thieves and locks them in a room, only to reveal their identities to the police. Their frequent rendezvous turn to love. One day, Saamy seals Perumal's gas station because the workers assaulted a woman and others when they challenged them with a much less distribution of petrol than being promised. This infuriates Perumal, who storms into Saamy's quarters with Bhuvana being present, and they argue. Bhuvana gets upset when Perumal mentions the bribe Saamy had taken from him, leaving her home. The next day, Saamy meets Bhuvana at the temple and reveals his past.

Past: Saamy's father Chokkalingam aspires to become a cop, but he is unable to fulfill his dream due to corruption. Chokkalingam takes care of agriculture as his living, but he wants to make Saamy a cop. Saamy passes the TNPSC exams but is asked for bribes. Chokkalingam mortgages his properties and makes him get the police job. Being an honest cop, Saamy is honored with transfers all over Tamil Nadu due to political pressure. In Trichy, Saamy is accused of bribery and gets suspended. After 6 months, Saamy proves his innocence, and he is finally posted back to Tirunelveli. Saamy adapts a new policy, where he takes bribes from the influential persons and donates it for the public's welfare.

Present: After learning this, Bhuvana reconciles with Saamy, and after much coercion, Srinivasan agrees to their engagement. The ruling party calls for a day strike in the state, and Perumal is to handle the responsibility of Tirunelveli on the eve of Pongal. The retail vendors plead with Saamy to protect the Pongal festival is a very important sales time. Saamy takes steps to maintain law and order and manages to halt the strike, which enrages Perumal. Perumal tells his henchmen to attack the market on the day of Saamy and Bhuvana's marriage since all the cops will be attending the wedding. Saamy witnesses the brutality of Perumal's men and this incident begins their enmity.

Saamy receives his transfer order to Dindigul with a week of duty remaining in the city. Saamy challenges to close Perumal's empire and finish him in that week, which he succeeds by using various enforcement tactics. Saamy arrests the main accomplices of Perumal and imprisons them for 15 15-day period. Saamy covertly kills Perumal's main enforcers in a riot caused by him during a procession. Saamy advises Bhuvana to leave for Pazhani. After listening to Perumal's phone calls in the evening, Saamy realizes that Perumal has planned to bomb somewhere. Saamy meets with Perumal's henchman, whom he spared in the rally shooting, and convinces the henchman to turn approver. Saamy finds that the bomb is to be detonated in his house.

Unknown to Saamy, Chokkalingam has arrived at his house from Pazhani. Despite Saamy's attempts to warn Chokalingam, the bomb detonates and Chokalingam is killed. The bomb maker and Perumal's henchman provide statements to the DC and Saamy is provided an arrest warrant against Perumal. Despite hurdles by the authorities and ministers to stop the arrest, Saamy leaves to arrest Perumal. On the final day eve, Saamy provides news to the media that Perumal has absconded and the cops are searching for him. Saamy routes Perumal to his sand quarry. After a brief fight, Perumal surrenders to Saamy and scoffs at him. Saamy refuses and kills Perumal with his illicit revolver, where he burns his corpse in a brick kiln to keep Perumal's death a secret. In the aftermath, Saamy performs Chokkalingam's rites.

Production
After directing the Tamil film. Thamizh (2002),the production company, Kavithalayaa Productions called Hari to direct a film for them since Hari assisted few of their films. The film was titled as Saamy, with Ajith Kumar initially considered to play the lead role before he was replaced by Vikram. Trisha was selected as the makers wanted a fresh pair opposite Vikram. Telugu actor Kota Srinivasa Rao was selected to play negative role making his debut in Tamil.

The film's shooting began in September 2002 when Vikram was simultaneously filming for his early 2003 releases such as Dhool and Kadhal Sadugudu, and the shooting took place at Tirunelveli and Karaikudi. Some fight scenes were shot at the busy lanes in Karaikudi where Vikram chased some rowdies and Pudichirukku song was Shot in New Zealand. The climax fight scene was shot for nearly five days, with Priyan canning the shots and Super Subbarayan choreographing the fights. A set resembling Thirunelveli market designed by art director Kathir was built at Kumbakonam. Vikram worked on his body for the film, sporting a thick waist to show notable differences from his other police film, Dhill and also put on eight kilograms.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack album and background score were composed by Harris Jayaraj. The song "Kalyanam Thaan" brought recognition to its lyricist Snehan, but received criticism from women's lib organisations for the lyrics "Thaaliya thaan kattikitu petthukalaama, illai pullakutti kattikitu pethukulaama?" (Shall we have kids after getting married or shall we have the kids first and then get married?).

Tamil track list

Telugu track list

Critical reception
Sify wrote "The patchy storyline merely serves as a pretext to spark off several skirmishes and bombastic dialogues. Director Hari packs in a sting, but Saamy is strictly for the no holds barred action addicts." Bizhat termed it as "taut, fully engaging actioner." Malathi Rangarajan of The Hindu wrote "Flaws there are — but when the maker has a finger on the pulse of the audience little else matters." Visual Dasan of Kalki panned Vikram's characterisation as misguiding society, while calling the film being riveting till the end.

Box office
Saamy was released approximately in 100 screens in Tamil Nadu. The film had a huge opening as it was a summer vacation for the Tamil audiences. Theatres in Chennai had almost 100% occupancies and the film recovered all its budget within 4 to 5 days. The film sold 1 crore tickets in Tamil Nadu box office netting ₹32 crore in its lifetime run.

Remakes
The film was remade into Telugu in 2004 as Lakshmi Narasimha. It was also remade in Kannada as Ayya (2005) and in Hindi as Policegiri (2013).

Sequel
In August 2016, during the audio launch of Iru Mugan, director Hari made an official announcement that he will unite with Vikram, also echoed by the latter, for a sequel to Saamy. Later the sequel named as Saamy Square.