Chakra (Eng: Wheel) is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film written and directed by MS Anandan in his directorial debut. The film stars Vishal, Shraddha Srinath and Regina Cassandra. Themed on cybercrimes and e-commerce scams, the film follows a soldier and a police officer who work together to bring down a cyber hacker. Released theatrically on 19 February 2021, the film opened to mixed to positive reviews.
49 robberies occurred on August 15th – Independence Day, with two masked robbers looting houses. The entire police force is clueless without the slightest lead or evidence. Assistant Commissioner Gayathiri (Sharaddha Srinath) is assigned to the case. She realizes that 50 houses were looted in total, with the 50th being the house of Chandru (Vishal), her former love interest. Chandru’s grandmother (K. R. Vijaya) gets injured in the theft in an attempt to safeguard the Ashoka Chakra medal, which was bestowed to Chandru’s late father (Nassar). However, the thieves knocked her down and stole the medal. Now, it is Chandru’s personal mission to avenge them, retrieve the medal, and solve the case.
Chandru looks back at the case details and information from the victims to realize that the robbers had known the exact location of money and jewels in every house. He deduces that the robbers had visited every house beforehand and planned the theft to perfection. Hence, he writes down a list of people who can get access to people’s houses and realizes that a company known as Dial For Help, which provides household services like technicians, plumber, etc., may be involved in the case. Hence, he heads to the headquarters and realizes that all 50 houses had been serviced by the company under a common number belonging to a man named Marimuthu.
Police rush to his house, only to find him already dead. Marimuthu’s widow explains that her husband was a good man who had died two years ago. Chandru, with no other clue, returns. Meanwhile, an unknown person calls the Police Commissioner (Vijay Babu) and informs him that he was responsible for all the thefts thus far. He also challenges the entire force that no one would be able to track him down.
Accepting this as a challenge, Chandru tries to provoke the unknown person, which appears to be successful as he gives a clue to his location – 00100. The police realize that it refers to a place, and they rush to the place, only to find destroyed computers. Chandru reveals that he knew the person would have left, but he only rushed to find any clue that he may have left. After some time, Chandru heads back to share his findings.
He reveals that the number 00100 was written on the walls in that place and that it was drawn in such a way that refers to the queen in chess, and that the hacker had left a partial thumbprint on the scanner used to destroy all data. He further reveals that theft would occur in 58 more houses on August 23rd due to the CM’s arrival. Lastly, he reveals that the hacker that they were searching for thus far was not a man, but a woman.
The unknown hacker is revealed to be Leela (Regina Cassandra), who works as a chess coach. A flashback shows that a young Leela (Baby Krithika) had loved her mother (Neelima Rani) tremendously, and both of them had a tight bond. Her alcoholic and abusive father (Aruldoss) tortures her mother every day. One day, Leela wakes up to find her mother died while in her sleep. Her father immediately marries another woman and brings with her two young sons. Later Leela’s father reveals that he and his new wife had suffocated and killed Leela’s mother. An enraged Leela kills both her father and stepmother using electricity and water. She uses her stepmother’s two sons as baits for her thefts. Next, a cat-and-mouse chase begins between Leela and Chandru, in which Chandru wins. The movie ends with an open end for a sequel where Leela challenges Chandru by uttering the words “The game begins”.
Directed by MS Anandan
Produced by Vishal
Written by MS Anandan
Starring Vishal Reddy, Shraddha Srinath, Regina Cassandra
Music by Yuvan Shankar Raja
Cinematography KT Balasubramaniyam
Edited by Thiyagu
Production Vishal Film Factory
Distributed by PVR Pictures
Release date 19 February 2021
Running time 130 minutes
Country India
Language Tamil
Visitor Rating: 5 Stars