A1: Accused No. 1 is a 2019 Indian Tamil-language romantic comedy drama film written and directed by Johnson K in his directorial debut. The film stars Santhanam and Tara Alisha Berry in the lead roles. Producer S. Raj Narayanan of CircleBox Entertainment has produced this movie. The music for the film is composed by Santhosh Narayanan and cinematography is handled by Gopi Jagadeeswaran. A1: Accused No. 1 was edited by Leo John Paul, song lyrics were penned by Rokesh, art direction was executed by A. Raja, dance choreography by Kalyan and Sandy, and stunts by Hari Dinesh. Principal photography commenced around October 2018. The film was released on 26 July 2019 and become a commercial hit.
Saravanan a.k.a. Saro (Santhanam) is a happy-go-lucky guy from North Chennai. Divya (Tara Alisha Berry) is the only daughter of an honest and most respected IAS officer, Anantharaman (Yatin Karyekar). Divya wishes to marry a rogue but has a condition that he should be from her same Brahmin community. Divya spots Saro fighting with a few goons and immediately develops a liking towards him as she mistakes him to be a Brahmin. Divya proposes to Saro, and they both start dating together.
Now, Divya finds out that Saro is not a Brahmin and decides to break up. Saro gets angry but decides to break up as Divya is strong in her decision of marrying only a Brahmin. One day, Anantharaman gets a heart attack while jogging on the road. Saro spots Anantharaman struggling and saves him by admitting in the hospital at the right time. Divya gets to know that it was Saro who saved her father in a timely manner, which makes her patch up with Saro again.
Saro meets Anantharaman with a marriage proposal, but Anantharaman turns it down, citing caste differences. Divya does not want to go against her father’s wishes as she respects her father a lot. Saro challenges Divya that every human has an evil side and her father is not an exception, for which Divya does not agree. Saro gets frustrated because of the break up and is drunk. He discusses with his friends that he wants to kill Anantharaman as he is the main villain for his love.
The next day, Saro’s drunk friends decide to kidnap and kill Anantharaman as they are thinking of helping Saro. They kidnap Anantharaman while he is out for jogging but forcefully feed him poison, following which he faints. Saro gets angered upon knowing his friends’ foolish plan and scolds them for their actions. However, to safeguard him and his friends, Saro takes Anantharaman’s body to Divya’s house and lies that her father passed away due to a heart attack while jogging.
Everyone gathers for the cremation ceremony of Anantharaman. Saro tries hard to pretend that no one finds out the truth about his friends’ involvement in the murder. Finally, Saro’s friend discloses that they have mistakenly fed him anesthesia instead of poison, and so Anantharaman should only be in an unconscious state and is not dead yet. Saro gets even more angry as his friends have put him in bigger trouble.
Suddenly, there comes a couple of more women claiming them to be Anantharaman’s wives. Divya gets shocked upon knowing that her father had extramarital affairs with a few more women. Now slowly, Anantharaman wakes up as the anesthesia’s effect is recovered and is shocked to see all of his women together. Saro uses this situation to his advantage and informs Divya that this drama was set by him to prove that every human has an evil side. Finally, Saro joins with Divya.
Directed by Johnson K
Produced by S. Raj Narayanan
Written by Johnson K
Starring Santhanam, Tara Alisha Berry, Saikumar, Yatin Karyekar, Rajendran, Lollu Sabha Manohar, M. S. Bhaskar, Swaminathan
Music by Santhosh Narayanan
Cinematography Gopi Jagadeeswaran
Edited by Leo John Paul
Production CircleBox Entertainment
Distributed by SP Chowdhary – 18 Reels
Release date 26 July 2019
Running time 109 minutes
Country India
Language Tamil
Visitor Rating: 3 Stars