Poikkal Kuthirai is a 2022 Tamil-language Indian film, directed by Santhosh P. Jayakumar. It stars Prabhu Deva, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar and John Kokken.
Kathiravan (Prabhu Deva) is a widower and single parent who lost his left leg in the bus crash that killed his wife. He's a poor but devoted father to his daughter Maghiz, sometimes bending the rules to ensure she's looked after.
When compensation for the bus crash finally arrives, Maghiz insists that her father spends the money on a prosthetic leg rather than relying on crutches. Almost immediately afterwards, Maghiz falls ill, leaving her father with huge medical bills he can't afford...
Desperately seeking the money he needs, Kathiravan speaks to his own father — an imprisoned gangster whose suggestions set events on a darker path. As a consequence, Kathiravan's life is entangled with another family and their own daughter.
Rudra is a businesswoman who's inherited an troubled import/export company after her father's disgrace and suicide. Deva is her estranged husband, never accepted by Rudra's family. And Shreya is the couple's young daughter, whose future may now be linked to Maghiz's...
- Big Bad: Deva is behind everything, including his father-in-law's supposed suicide, the money laundering and drug smuggling, and the plan to kidnap his own daughter.
- Boom, Headshot!:
- Chekhov's Gun: The smart watch Rudra wears as a health monitor is the final piece of Kathiravan's plan. He uses it to ensure that she knows his location and hears Deva's confession.
- The Chessmaster: The final reveal is that Kathiravan has been pulling the strings for the last month. He almost immediately worked out that Deva was a crook, and everything since that point has been to manipulate events and bring Deva's conspiracy crashing down. It's sufficiently accurate that it ends with Rudra arriving in the building, finding the gun Kathiravan left for her, and shooting the seemingly triumphant Deva in the back of the head just as Kathiravan finishes explaining how the villain's been Out-Gambitted.
- Consulting a Convicted Killer: Kathiravan initially goes to see his father, in prison, to ask for money. Instead, his father suggests a plan to get the money. At the end of the film it's revealed that they had further meetings where Kathiravan told his father about Deva's villainous nature.
- Face–Heel Turn: Kathiravan's best friend Madhan has betrayed him to Deva and the villain knows every detail of Kathiravan's plan, enabling Deva to stay one step ahead. Or so it seems - it's actually The Infiltration.
- Gambit Pileup: Kathiravan and Madhan's attempt to kidnap Shreya fails when the bad guys do the same thing minutes earlier. Later in the film it becomes clear that the villainous Deva knew about Kathiravan's own plan and this was the plan all along - and then, at the end, it's revealed that Kathiravan was already aware of Deva's plot and Madhan's apparent Face–Heel Turn wasn't betraying Kathiravan, he was a fake defector ensuring that Deva was Out-Gambitted.
- Handicapped Badass: Kathiravan lost his leg several years before the film starts. He's still an action hero and entirely capable of beating up bad guys, whether on crutches, using a prosthetic or hopping on one leg.
- How We Got Here: The film opens with Kathiravan as a prisoner. He's suspended from the ceiling and being beaten by interrogators. It's not until much later in the story that the context is revealed — Rudra's men have detained him after Shreya's kidnapping.
- The Infiltration: The final twist is that Madhan's Face–Heel Turn was a lie. He's always been working with Kathiravan, and was infiltrating Deva's organisation by pretending to betray his friend.
- Never Suicide: Rudra's father killed himself before the start of the film, haunted and shamed by the corruption within his family business. Or so it seems. Deva murdered him and staged the suicide.
- No Name Given: Kathiravan's father is never directly named. In fact, Kathiravan doesn't even refer to him as 'father' or confirm their relationship, although his father's dialogue confirms that Kathiravan is his son.
- Offing the Offspring: Deva is annoyed when his pre-teen daughter Shreya hears his villainous confession to Kathiravan and calls him out as a "bad man". Because he now has to kill her as well. He doesn't seem to dwell on it for too long, though.
- Put on a Prison Bus: Rudra's bodyguard Ahmed is arrested after the shooting at the docks, leaving Kathiravan to face the villains alone.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: After Madhan's Face–Heel Turn is revealed to Kathiravan, Deva orders his men to kill everyone in the building, including Madhan, and points out that there's no way he could really trust him.
- String Theory:
- Wham Shot: Madhan shakes off the ropes he's supposedly bound with and stands up, revealing he's not a prisoner and is working with the villains.
- Would Hurt a Child:
