Pathu Thala

One night, Tamil Nadu CM goes missing, where the CBI heads to investigate against Ameer, who is the henchman of a dreaded crime boss AG Raavanan alias AGR. Ameer commits suicide when the CBI surrounds him everywhere in order to arrest him.

Meanwhile, Shaktivel is an undercover cop, who is assigned to collect evidences in order to arrest AGR, where he works for Bhai at Vishakapatnam under the alias of Guna. One day, Bhai sends Guna to work for AGR, where he meets AGR's trusted henchman Selvin. Guna meets his ex-girlfriend Leela Thompson, a Tahsildar who makes an effort to thwart AGR's vehicles. Guna finally earns the trust of AGR's right-hand man Singa after he manages to retrieve ₹400 crore from a goods train despite the vigilance team's attempts to retrieve the money. Guna finally meets AGR, where he also saves him from an assassination attempt orchestrated by his enemy and Deputy CM Naanjilar Gunasekaran.

AGR later threatens Naanjilar, who vows to kill him. Naanjilar and AGR's old age home Nesakaran's caretaker, along with Leela compete for the by-election by protesting against AGR's sand mafia. The small protest explodes into a big one, where AGR burns the old age home. During the campaigning of by-election, Selvin sees Leela and Guna having a conversation and begins to suspect, where he starts collecting evidence by sneaking into Guna's residence and finds a pen drive which has all evidence against AGR. Guna finds surveillance cameras hidden everywhere and is about to reach Selvin, but Selvin gets mysteriously killed. The people residing in Nesakaram learns from Fr. Thomas that AGR had been running several old age homes and orphanages throughout the world which changes the public's view and they develops respect towards AGR.

AGR later kills Sabari after he learns that Sabari had struck a deal with the vigilance team and Ruby, a by-election candidate, to reveal the truth about AGR, burning down Nesakaram and killing Selvin. Guna learns the truth from Pistol, who is also an undercover cop. AGR and his sister Samudhra reconcile on AGR's birthday with Guna's help. After a huge celebration, Guna meets AGR, where AGR reveals that his brother-in-law's involvement in starting an epidemic by introducing a vaccine which had high side effects. This forced AGR to kill his brother-in-law and got separated from Samudhra.

AGR further reveals that he knows Guna's real identity as an undercover cop. Naanjilar arrives with men to kill AGR, where a fight ensues and AGR kills Naanjilar. The next morning, the police arrives and arrest him despite huge protests by people to release AGR. While the CBI chief pushes Guna to tell the truth, Guna refuses and tells that the evidence collected by him were corrupted due to the gunshot by Naanjilar. The CBI chief realises that Sakthi has truly become AGR's Guna. Due to lack of evidence, AGR is released where he leaves on a helicopter.

The film was launched in June 2019 with Narthan, who directed Mufti, as the director. Silambarasan and Gautham Karthik were announced to star in the film.[4] A scene was shot in Bellary with Silambarasan.[5] After a delay in the film's shooting after Silambarasan did not show up to the sets, media outlets starting reporting that the film was dropped in October 2019.[6] Narthan later opted out and was replaced by Obeli N Krishna, who previously directed films like Sillunu Oru Kaadhal and Nedunchaalai.[7] After Krishna entered the project, the film's writing was reworked to include more characters and a modified storyline.[8] Silambarasan, who was simultaneously shooting for Gautham Vasudev Menon’s Vendhu Thanindhathu Kaadu, was reported to join the film's sets again.[9] The scenes involving Silambarasan had to be reshot because of his weight transformation post Eeswaran (2021).[10] The first look poster of the film was released on 19 January 2021.[11]

The shooting of the film began in August 2021. The second schedule of the shoot has been postponed so many times, the shooting resumed in July 2022.[12] Major portions of Silambarasan was shot near Bellary Palace in the Mysore district in Karnataka.[13] In October 2022, it was reported that the Karnataka schedule of the film was wrapped.[14] The second schedule of the film began in Chennai on 13 August 2022 with Gautham Karthik joining the sets.[15][16] The final schedule of the film was reported to begin on July and was reported to complete in August 2022.[17] On 23 November 2022, the entire shooting of the film was wrapped.[18][19] Despite the film's three year delay, Silambarasan said that "he was determined that I should finish this film for Gautham Karthik's sake".[20]

Post production works of the film began in December 2022.[21] Gautham Karthik and Priya Bhavani Shankar completed dubbing for their portions on 22 December 2022 and 3 January 2023 respectively.[22][23]

The music of the film is composed by A. R. Rahman which marks his second collaboration with the director after Sillunu Oru Kaadhal and fifth film to feature actor Silambarasan after Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa (2010), Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada (2016), Chekka Chivantha Vaanam (2018) and Vendhu Thanindhathu Kaadu (2022).[24] The first single titled "Namma Satham" was released on 3 February 2023 coinciding with Silambarasan’s birthday.[25] The second single titled 'Ninaivirukka' was released on 13 March 2023.[26] The entire soundtrack was released on 18 March 2023, with an additional song, titled ‘Osarattum Pathu Thala’, releasing on 27 March.

• Pathu Thala at IMDb