MGR (2024 Tamil Film)

***MGR*** (an initialism for ***Maruthur Gopalan Ramachandran***) is a 2024 Indian Tamil-language political satire film produced by Ishari K. Ganesh and directed by K. R. Prabhu in his directorial debut. The film stars Yogi Babu and Priyanka Mohan while Prakash Raj, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Yugi Sethu and VTV Ganesh play supporting roles. Yuvan Shankar Raja scored music for the film, while Vidhu Ayyanna and Anthony handled the cinematography and editing, respectively. The film released on 28 March 2024 to unanimously positive reviews and performed well in the box office.

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## Plot

The film begins with newly elected Maruthur Gopalan Ramachandran (MGR) swearing in as Chief Minister (CM) of Tamil Nadu, where he is shot in the chest by with Akshay.

The story moves back to ten months ago where MGR is a mere councillor from Maruthur ward in Tamil Nadu rural and belongs to the ruling party. MGR aspires to quickly achieve big in politics, unlike his father Parthiban and Vasundhra Muthuraman, who neither achieved fame as a politician nor made money. The incumbent CM and ruling party chief, Subramani Siva, falls ill and gets hospitalised, while Venkatraman, the party general secretary, becomes the interim CM. Since Subramani is the MLA from Maruthur, MGR decides to put all efforts to contest in the by-election on behalf of the ruling party, once Subramani dies.

However, MGR feels that he needs to create some media visibility to get into Venkatraman's good books. MGR gets the paid help of Aishwarya Velumani aka Aishu P. Velumani, an employee of Analytica – a multinational company which is involved in election strategy formulation. MGR goes to Delhi to protest and create an awareness against diseases, which gets the media's attention. Finally, MGR gets Venkatraman's attention and meets him at party SQ in Delhi. Little While Later, Subramani dies, Venkatraman becomes the official Chief Minister, and a by-election is scheduled in Maruthur constituency. Venkatraman urgently announces that MGR is the by-election candidate at the party's general body meeting. Most of the party members and ministers do not agree with Venkatraman's decision.

The ruling party's deputy-General secretary Dhayalan Pandian, who was in USA when Subramani Siva died, comes to the meeting hall. He is furious and feels betrayed by Venkatraman's actions. He reminds him that he had been elected as MLA from Maruthur, his hometown, in a hat trick in last 12 years, and only relinquished the seat due to Subramani Siva's personal request in the previous general election. He announces that he will contest in the election as an independent candidate, and once he wins, Venkatraman will be expelled from the party and government, while he becomes the new CM.

Now, MGR realises the hardships of contesting in the elections. He understands that people are in favour of Dhayalan due to his strong influence, hard work, caste and image. Also most of the state ministers, ruling party bigwigs, and MLAs do not work for MGR as they want to remain neutral to join the victor of the by-election. MGR devises a strategy to tarnish Dhayalan's image with the help of meme creators and his sidekicks. He spreads rumours that Dhayalan is actually a woman disguised as man, which results in the public trolling Dhayalan on social media. Dhayalan is also insulted when he is unable to sing "Vaathi Coming" during a college function. Dhayalan discovers that Analytica is behind MGR and strikes a deal with Aishu to support him.

Aishu's advice, Dhayalan goes to Delhi and meets national ruling party leaders. He also tries to break the ruling party of Tamil Nadu and prevent Venkatraman from trying to take all the party MLAs to a resort. It is revealed that Aishu was actually pretending to be on Dhayalan's side. She comes back to help MGR, but a tussle comes within the party, while some party senior leaders do not want MGR to gain fame. However, Venkatraman is in favour of MGR. During election, MGR wins against Dhayalan, but Venkatraman gets arrested in corruption cases, and MGR becomes the CM-elect of the state, due to Venkatraman's efforts. The next morning, MGR is at the podium to be sworn-in, where he is shot.

The flashback ends, and now it is revealed that MGR was wearing a bulletproof vest during the swearing-in ceremony upon anticipating such an incident. The Akshay is a youngster who aspires to some new-gen honest politicians. MGR speaks in front of the media that he is in to bring a change and that he has transferred the corruption cases against Venkatraman to the CBI. He also delivers a message that there are numerous educated youngsters contesting in elections independently with a hope of bringing a change but go unnoticed by the public due to big political parties staying in the limelight. The Akshay is convinced now, and the entire state believes that MGR will bring some good to the state, unlike other politicians. In the end, Aishu smiles upon seeing MGR, which implies that he is just becoming a corrupt politician through his speech trying to woo public which was her strategy as well to win the hearts of people. Also, MGR silently reveals that he never intends to bring Venkatraman out of prison.

## Cast

* Yogi Babu as Maruthur Gopalan Ramachandran (MGR), a good councillor who contests in a by election as a candidate to become an MLA later he become Chief Minister.
* Priyanka Mohan as Aishwarya Velumani (Aishu P. Velumani), a Analytica employee and political strategist who helps MGR in his purpose, later she develops her feelings for him (Voice dubbed by Raveena Ravi).
* Prakash Raj as Parthiban Muthuraman, MGR's father.
* Prithviraj Sukumaran as Dhayalan Pandian (Pandiamma ailas Sarojamma), an MLA and MGR's opponent who is from the same ruling party.
* Yugi Sethu as Venkatraman, the party secretary who becomes the interim CM and later gets arrested.
* VTV Ganesh as MGR's uncle
* Thalavasal Vijay as Subramani Siva, a deceased and former CM who has a by election scheduled in his constituency.
* Vikram Shri as Akshay
* Radha Ravi as Politician
* Livingston as Surya
* Visalakshi Manikandan as Yamuna Padmanabhan
* V. Dasarathy as Arumugam
* Muthukaalai as Salmaan
* Crane Manohar as MGR's sidekick
* Bava Lakshmanan as Dhayalan Pandian's assistant
* Chaams as Dhayalan Pandian's henchman