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Mankatha (; ) is a 2011 Indian Tamil language-language action thriller film written and directed by Venkat Prabhu and produced by Dayanidhi Azhagiri's Cloud Nine Movies. The film stars an ensemble cast of Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja,Trisha Krishnan, Raai Laxmi, Anjali, Andrea Jeremiah, Ashwin Kakumanu, Vaibhav Reddy, Premji Amaren, Mahat Raghavendra, Jayaprakash, Aravind Akash and Subbu Panchu. It is the fiftieth film of Ajith as a lead actor and the third and penultimate film of the production studio. The film follows Vinayak, a corrupt ACP in Mumbai, who joins a gang of four who plans on a heist of cricket betting money.
The film was officially announced in August 2010 under the initial official title Mangaatha, however, it underwent a change to Mankatha due to numerology reasons. Principal photography commenced in October 2010. It was shot for the most part in Chennai, the Dharavi slum in Mumbai and Bangkok and wrapped by June 2011. Following speculations regarding the film's release, Sun Pictures acquired the theatrical rights and distributed the film via Radhika's Radaan Mediaworks. The film has music composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, cinematography handled by Sakthi Saravanan and editing by Praveen K. L.-N. B. Srikanth.
Mankatha released worldwide on 31 August 2011 in theatres to critical acclaim from critics and became the second biggest opening Tamil film after Enthiran at the time of release.
Kamal Ekambaram, a police officer, commits suicide due to leaks of his IPL gambling plans. ACP Prithviraj takes charge to end the betting scandals in IPL cricket in Mumbai. Prithvi then reveals that Kamal Faked death in a secret mission to draw attention to the betting scandals and returned under the name Praveen Kumar. Arumuga Chettiyar, an influential yet illegal business dealer and Faizal's boss, owns "Golden Theatres" in Mumbai, which has been converted into a gambling den and is the front for all his illegal businesses. Chettiyar uses his links with crime bosses in Mumbai and tries to route through his old theater, a cash of over to be used in betting.
Vinayak is introduced to Chettiyar through his girlfriend Sanjana, who is in love with Vinayak, but Vinayak only pretends to love her. Sumanth, a goon working for Chettiyar, hatches a conspiracy to rob the money with the company of his friends: Ganesh, a local Sub-Inspector; Mahat, who owns a bar in Mumbai and Mahat's friend Prem, an IIT graduate. Vinayak befriends the boys at Sumanth's marriage with Suchithra. One late evening, Vinayak meets Prem, who becomes inebriated and reveals their heist plan. Vinayak starts spying on them and confronts them on the day of the planned heist. The four take him in, promising him a fifth of the share. However, Vinayak has other plans as he wants to kill his accomplices and take the money. He promises to help them and divide it between them. After looting the money, they leave the money in an abandoned godown.
Later, all of them celebrate the turn of events at Mahat's bar, but Sumanth is identified at the party by Faizal and is later caught by him. Sumanth is cornered by Chettiyar, who orders Faizal to kill him for his treachery, but is rescued in time by Ganesh and Vinayak, and the trio escape from the hideout, taking Chettiyar hostage. While driving back to the godown, Vinayak finds Sanjana on the way and brutally shoves Chettiyar out of the vehicle in front of her. Sanjana is engulfed in grief when she learns of Vinayak's true intentions. Upon reaching the godown, they discover that Mahat and Prem had escaped with the cash and are accompanied by Sona. The three men are confronted by Faizal and Chettiyar's men, but manage to evade them and escape. Later, Sumanth turns against Vinayak after he discovers that his wife had been kidnapped by Chettiyar.
After a brief scuffle, Sumanth runs into Prithvi, who takes him into custody and rescues his wife on the condition that he turns approver and reveal everything. However, Sumanth is killed when Prithvi's wife Sabitha is kidnapped and threatened by Vinayak. Vinayak learns about Mahat and Prem's whereabouts through Ganesh, and along with him, starts pursuing them. Prithvi and the others follow suit, and all of them are holed up in a highway resort with the money. A sequence of events leads to the murders of the gang members one by one — Mahat is killed by Sona, who gets killed by Vinayak and Prem gets killed by Prithvi — with Ganesh and Vinayak remaining alive. A final fight ensues between Vinayak and Prithvi. At the final moment, Praveen throws a gun at Prithvi, who shoots Vinayak and a huge explosion rocks the shack, seemingly ending the fight.
After several days, the police receive information about Ganesh living in Thailand. Praveen arrives there, but comes across Vinayak. Praveen confronts him and calls up Prithvi to inform him of Vinayak's presence, but it is revealed that Prithvi and Vinayak have been best friends since their college days and took police training together. They had learnt about the betting money scheme by Chettiyar and operated the plan together, including Vinayak's faked death. Ganesh had also been killed by Vinayak as a part of the plan, and Prithvi and Vinayak escaped the explosion with the , each taking as their share. Prithvi informs Vinayak that their money is safe in the Bank of England and asks him to deal with Praveen. Vinayak snatches Praveen's gun and holds him at gunpoint declaring that the game is over.
Prabhu termed the film as "male-oriented", attaching less importance and significance to the female characters in the film. Early reports suggested that Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kajal Aggarwal and Anushka Shetty were initially approached for the lead female roles, while in July 2010, reports surfaced that Shriya Saran and Neetu Chandra, and Lakshmi Rai were supposedly signed for the roles. However, the following month Neetu Chandra opted out of the film, refusing the project due to unavailability of dates. Subsequently, Trisha was signed to portray Sanjana, Ajith's love interest, pairing with him for the third time, with Lakshmi Rai being confirmed later, who was signed on to play an important and "lengthy role". Venkat Prabhu revealed that changes in the script resulted in changes of the female characters' personalities, clarifiying that Trisha was not the replacement for Neetu Chandra and that the characters offered to both were different, while adding that Trisha's role was specifically written for her. Prabhu further stated that Lakshmi Rai was first chosen to play Ashwin's pair, which was dropped when the screenplay was altered, and that she was eventually offered the role of Sona, resolving that Rai was not given a choice to select between the roles of Sanjana and Sona, as the actress had claimed post the film's release. Earlier, reports had claimed that model and actress Jacqueline Fernandez was also roped in for a guest role. In November 2010, Sneha was reported to be added to the cast to be paired opposite Arjun, however the role was later finalised with Andrea Jeremiah portraying that character. She was also expected to perform a song for the soundtrack album.
Other additions to the cast in the following months included Subbu Panchu, who rose to fame with his appearance in Boss Engira Bhaskaran and would essay a police officer character, Jayaprakash, enacting also a character with negative shades as the father of Trisha's character, and Anjali, playing Vaibhav's pair. Sources claimed that Venkat Prabhu himself would also enact a pivotal role in the film, while reports suggesting that Vijay would appear in a cameo role were dismissed by the producer, who clarified that Vijay Vasanth would appear in a pivotal role. Concerning the film crew, Venkat Prabhu renewed his previous associations with his cousin Yuvan Shankar Raja, for the background score and soundtrack of Mankatha, Sakthi Saravanan, who would handle the cinematography, and Praveen K. L., who along with N. B. Srikanth, would take care of the editing. Vasuki Bhaskar and Kalyan remained the costume designer and the main choreographer, respectively, with Shoby joining the latter for a couple of songs, while Selva was assigned as the stunt coordinator.
The film's second schedule was planned to begin on 6 December 2010 in a studio in Chennai, which was slightly delayed due to heavy rain, and started couple of days later. This led to speculation that the film had been shelved due to financial constraints, which was quickly denied by Venkat Prabhu. During the schedule, resembling the Dharavi slum in Mumbai was erected in a Chennai studio. Ajith also performed one of the action choreographies with the use of a body mounted camera, weighing around 30 kg. In late December, the third song, a "high-spirited peppy number", was shot for five days, with Shobi choreographing the steps. An item number, titled "Machi, Open The Bottle", it featured actresses Debi Dutta and Kainaat Arora dancing to the song along with Ajith and the rest of the gang. In January 2011, the crew was shooting at Binny Mills in Perambur. Vijay happened to be shooting for Velayudham at a nearby location and Ajit met him. The schedule was wrapped up by early February, with which approximately fifty per cent of the film was reportedly completed.
The remaining part of the film was supposedly to be shot during the third and last schedule to be held in Mumbai, which was to start in late February. However, sourced clarified that the subsequent schedule, too, would be held in Chennai only, with filming being carried on at the Padmanabha Theatre in North Chennai. In late March, the crew eventually moved to Mumbai, where the filming was held for nearly two weeks, mostly at the Dharavi slum. The climax portion was planned to be filmed at Madurai, which was considered as "apt" for the "action-oriented" sequence, but was eventually filmed in Chennai as well, while the remaining scenes were to be canned in Hyderabad. During the first week of June, Ajith had reportedly completed his portion, with his last day shoot being held in Hyderabad, while sources confirmed that filming was still being carried on later that month in Hyderabad. Shooting was further extended, with the crew leaving for Bangkok again in late June for a ten-day schedule to shoot the pending scenes, including a lengthy fight sequence and a song, involving Premji and Lakshmi Rai. Despite earlier announcement that Ajith had finished his portions, a "special scene" featuring Ajith in a different look was filmed on one day during the first week of July. Principal photography ended by June 2011.
However, in a turn of events, Studio Green cancelled the deal the very next day due to "various reasons" which Gnanavel Raja did not want to elaborate, in spite of posters in newspapers featuring Studio Green's logo. Times of India reported that Azhagiri bought back the rights, since Gnanavel Raja had planned to sell the satellite rights to Jaya TV, a channel run by the opposition party, AIADMK. On 24 August, Azhagiri announced that Kalanidhi Maran's Sun Pictures had bought the theatrical and satellite rights of the film and would distribute it along with Cloud Nine Movies. Udhayanidhi Stalin was said to have negotiated the deal and united the production houses to release the film jointly. Mankatha thus became the first Ajith film under Sun Pictures banner as well as their first release after the assembly election. Actress Radhika's Radaan Mediaworks distributed the film to Tamil Nadu theatres.
Dhayanidhi Azhagiri announced that the film would be a worldwide release with subtitles in English, simultaneously opening across Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada and many other parts of Middle East and Europe. The film was also dubbed into Telugu cinema as Gambler and released in Andhra Pradesh on 9 September 2011. Noted Telugu producer Bellamkonda Suresh acquired the film's Telugu dubbing rights by late August 2011 and released the Telugu dubbed version across 225 screens, enabling the biggest opening for a dubbed version of a Tamil film. Ten days later, the film was a box-office hit in Kerala as well. The film became scheduled for a release on 1 September 2011 in order to cash in on the Vinayaka Chaturthi-Ramadan weekend, before Ayngaran International eventually finalised 31 August 2011 as the release date in overseas theatres few days later. In the United States, the film was released at 34 theatres.
At the Mayajaal multiplex, Mankatha was screened in all 14 screens on the first day, resulting in 70 shows per day, all being sold out, while Sathyam Cinemas reported a net of 0.34 crore from two screens for the five-day weekend. The film grossed 6.5 crore in 19 days in Chennai. The Telugu version Gambler, which released in 225 screens. In Kerala, the film was released in the original language in Thiruvananthapuram and Palakkad districts on 31 August while a dubbed version released all over the state on 9 September, opening at first rank, outclassing other Malayalam releases. The film bought for 0.6 crore in Kerala was expected to get distributor share of 1.4 crore. The Telugu version got high opening compared to other mainstream films It was successful at the Bangalore box office.
The film opened at second rank in Malaysia, grossing $803,666 in its first weekend, with a per screen average of $19,602 (highest per screen average) claiming the second-highest opening weekend for a Tamil film. After four weeks, the film grossed 0.6 crore in Malaysia. In the United Kingdom, the film grossed $179,054 from 16 screens, opening at No.1 spot and No.4 in the all-time chart Overall the film grossed $1,104,911 in Malaysia in six weeks, and $268,533 in UK at the end of the third week. Sun Pictures, the distributors declared that Mankatha grossed 80 crore worldwide in thirty days, nearing the end of its run. Sify termed the film as a blockbuster as well as the year's biggest commercial success. The film completed a 50-day run at the box office and was ranked as second highest grosser in Tamil cinema behind Enthiran at the time of its release. According to The Times of India, the film grossed ₹100 crore at the worldwide box office in its final run. However, Madras Musings stated that the film made only 68 crore in its lifetime.
| Best Youth Film | Dhayanidhi Alagiri | |
| Best Newcomer (Male) | Ashwin Kakumanu | |
| Best Negative Role (Female) | Raai Laxmi | |
| Best Comedian | Premgi Amaren | |
| Best Director – Tamil | Venkat Prabhu | |
| Best Actor – Tamil | Ajith Kumar | |
| Best Supporting Actress – Tamil | Lakshmi Rai | |
| Best Director | Venkat Prabhu | |
| Best Supporting Actor | Premgi Amaren | |
| Best Cinematographer | Sakthi Saravanan | |
| Best Female Playback Singer | Suchitra for "Vaada Bin Laada" | |
| Technical Sound Engineer | M. Kumaraguparan | |
| Best Actor in a Negative Role – Tamil | ||
| Best Male Playback Singer – Tamil | S. P. B. Charan for "Nee Naan" | |
| Favourite Hero | ||
| Favourite Director | Venkat Prabhu | |
| Favourite Film | Mankatha | |
| Favourite Heroine | Trisha | |
| Favourite Song | Yuvan Shankar Raja for "Vilaiyaadu Mankatha" | |
Vivek and Cell Murugan dress similar to Vinayak Mahadev in Killadi (2015). The background score is reused. The verse "Aadama Jaichomada" from "Machi Open The Bottle" inspired a film of the same name. The scene where Vinayak gets excited by the collection of money was parodied in Tamizh Padam 2 (2018).
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