LKG (film)

LKG (also interpreted as Lalgudi Karuppiah Gandhi) is a 2019 Indian Tamil political satire film directed by K. R. Prabhu on his directorial debut. The film stars RJ Balaji and Priya Anand in the main lead roles while Nanjil Sampath, J. K. Rithesh, Ramkumar Ganesan, and Mayilsamy play supporting roles. The film is produced by Ishari K. Ganesh under his production banner Vels Film International. Leon James has been roped into score music for the film while Pa. Vijay and popular filmmaker Vignesh Shivan are roped into pen lyrics for the songs. The film released on 22 February 2019.

Plot
The film begins with Lalgudi Karupiah Gandhi (LKG) swearing in as Chief Minister (CM) of Tamil Nadu, where he is shot by a sniper. The story moves to a flashback where LKG is a ward councilor from Lalgudi and belongs to the ruling party. LKG aspires to achieve big in politics, unlike his father Azhagu Meiyappan, who neither created fame as a politician nor made money. The incumbent CM, Avudaiyappan Mudhaliar, falls sick and gets hospitalised, while Bojappan, the party secretary, becomes the interim CM.

Avudaiyppan dies, and a by-election is scheduled in his constituency. LKG decides to contest in the by-election on behalf of the ruling party. However, he needs to create some media visibility to get into Bojappan's good books. LKG gets the help of Sarala Munusamy (Sara M. Samy), an employee of V Analytica – a multinational company which is involved in election strategy formulation. LKG goes to Delhi to protest and create an awareness against diseases, which gets the media attention. Finally, LKG gets the attention of Bojappan and is offered the party ticket to contest. However, Ramraj Pandian, who also happens to be from the same ruling party, gets furious and feels cheated by Bojappan. Ramraj challenges that he will contest in the election as an independent candidate and will try all means to break the party.

Now, LKG realises the hardships of contesting in elections. He understands that people are in favour of Ramraj due to his strong influence and image. LKG devises a strategy to tarnish Ramraj’s public image with the help of meme creators and his sidekicks. He spreads rumours that Ramraj is actually a woman disguised as man, which results in the public trolling Ramraj in social media. Ramraj is also insulted when he is unable to sing "Tamil Thai Valthu" during a college function. Ramraj finds out that V Analytica is behind LKG and strikes a deal with Sara to support him, for which she agrees.

As per Sara’s advice, Ramraj goes to Delhi and meets national level party leaders. He also tries to break the ruling party of Tamil Nadu and prevent that Bojappan takes all the party MLAs to a resort. Now it is revealed that Sara was actually pretending to be on Ramraj's side. She comes back to help LKG, but a tussle comes within the party while some party senior leaders do not want LKG to gain fame. However, Bojappan is in favour of LKG. During election, LKG wins against Ramraj, but Bojappan gets arrested in a few corruption cases, and LKG now becomes the CM of the state.

The flashback, ends and now it is revealed that LKG was wearing a bulletproof vest during the swearing in ceremony anticipating such incidents. The sniper is a youngster who aspires to some new gen politicians. LKG speaks in front of the media that he is in to bring a change and that he has transferred the corruption cases against Bojappan 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 goes unnoticed by the public due to big political parties staying in the limelight. The sniper is convinced now, and the entire state people believes that LKG will bring some good to the state unlike other politicians. In the end, Sara gives a smile seeing LKG, which implies that he is just becoming a true politician through his speech trying to woo public which was her strategy as well to win the hearts of people.

Cast

 * RJ Balaji as Lalgudi Karupaiah Gandhi (LKG), a ward councillor who contests in a by-election as a candidate to become an MLA
 * Priya Anand as Sarala Munusamy (Sara M. Samy), a V Analytica employee and a political strategist who helps LKG in his purpose
 * Nanjil Sampath as Azhagu Meiyappan, LKG's father who neither created fame as a politician nor made money
 * J. K. Rithesh as Ramraj Pandian, a powerful MLA and LKG's opponent who is from the same ruling party
 * Ramkumar Ganesan as Bojappan, the party secretary who becomes the interim CM and later gets arrested
 * Mayilsamy as LKG's uncle
 * Ananth Vaidyanathan as Avudaiyappan Mudhaliar, a deceased and former CM who has a by-election scheduled in his constituency
 * Santhana Bharathi as Politician
 * Varun as Assassin
 * Manobala as Mukesh
 * Vinodhini Vaidyanathan as Bhagya Rajappan
 * Bijili Ramesh as Drunkard

Production
The film announcement was apparent to have made during February 2018 by debutant director Prabhu who previously worked as an associate of Prabhu Deva. The filmmakers hired RJ Balaji to play the lead role as Lalgudi Karuppiah Gandhi in the film, in fact making his first main lead role in a film. It was reported that RJ Balaji himself has written the story and screenplay while two other technical writers Era Murukan and Pradeep Rangananthan were recruited for writing the dialogues.

Marketing and Promotions
The announcement of the film was done on Star Sports Tamil after a huge buzz created by the team painting street walls stating RJ Balaji's entry into politics. The film is also one of the few ones to have multiple brands sponsor the movie (Nippon Paints, Ponvandu Soaps etc.). A dedicated team worked on the marketing and promotions of the film right from the scripting phase till release. The official trailer of the film was unveiled on 2 February 2019 and had crossed the 1M views mark within 1 hour (currently 5.1M views). The theatrical rights of the film in Tamil version was sold to Sakthi Film Factory. The film will also have its dubbed Kannada version release with the same title and the theatrical rights of the film in Karnataka were sold to ANK Films. The release date was officially announced by the team on 11 February 2019 from the #BlueRoom at Twitter India HQ, Mumbai. It is notable that this is the first south Indian film to use the twitter #BlueRoom for announcement of release date of movie. The film was released on 22 February 2019 and is getting positive reviews from the audience.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack was composed by Leon James. The song "Ethanai Kaalam" from Malaikkallan (1954) has been remixed and was released as single on 26 January.
 * Ethanai Kaalam – Sean Roldan
 * Thimiru Kattaadha – D. Sathyaprakash & Leon James
 * Dappava Kizhichaan – Shruti Hassan
 * Thamizh Anthem – P. Susheela, L. R. Eswari, Vani Jayaram, Sid Sriram & Chinmayi
 * Ini Oru Vidhi Seivom – D. Sathyaprakash & Dhivagar

Reception
LKG has released to a strong opening in Tamil Nadu with significant occupancy in all screens in metro areas. The movie has received generally favorable reviews from audience and critics. While M Suganth of TimeofIndia praised that this is a"Satisfying political satire film and in-arguably the best of recent politics based movies", Subhakeerthana of Indianexpress notes that in spite of it being a "crowd-pleaser", "the story doesn’t rise above spoofing the cliched political characters and situations". A massive success in domestic circle. Box office collection is estimated to be around 15 crores till date.

Release

The Movie released on 22 February 19 and satellite rights were sold to Sun TV.