Padai Thalaivan Movie Review: Shanmugapandian shines in this film that thrives and trudges in tropes

Padai Thalaivan is actor Shanmugapandian's first after the demise of his superstar father, actor-politician Vijayakant.

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It could have taken the easy route of milking nostalgia, and even gone his father's way of featuring in a film where the protagonist saves the nation. Padai Thalaivan, thankfully, knows its strengths and tells a small story of a simple villager who loves his elephant. But this feeling didn't last long as the narration becomes haphazard in the second half. It would have been better if the nation-saving trope had indeed been explored rather than whatever unfolded in Padai Thalaivan.

The film, directed by U Anbu, begins in a remote forest village in Odisha, where a number of Tamil-speaking families suffer under a tyrant-thug-priest Thilagan (Garudan Ram), who snatches away cattle from the villagers for an undisclosed reason. The scene then shifts to Pollachi's Sethumadai, where we are introduced to Velu (Shanmugapandian), a mahout and a potter, his father (Kasturiraja), his sister, and his elephant Manian. Velu's personal debt problems force him to rent his elephant for weddings and temple festivals. Velu's burdens pile up, and in a turn of events, his elephant is snatched away by the forest officials. However, Manian goes missing soon after. What happened to him and his equation with Velu is what Padai Thalaivan is all about.