Nadodikkattu 1987

Dasan, Mohanlal and Vijayan, Sreenivasan, are underpaid peons at a company, where Dasan’s pride in his B-Com first class education and his polished appearance often put him at odds with the less-educated Vijayan. Dasan’s sharp tongue and flashy attitudes routinely rub Vijayan the wrong way, turning their shared cramped life into a running comedy of ego and irritation. Dasan even assigns Vijayan silly housework, a dynamic that fuels their frequent, mischievous spats while masking a deep companionship that keeps them tethered to each other as they chase a bigger future.

The arrival of a new managing director sets off a brief, tangled series of deceptions. After a petty altercation with an unknown man, Dasan verbally disparages him and even pushes him into a rain-soaked puddle to catch the attention of a passing woman. Vijayan punctures the man’s car tires in a misguided bid to outdo his friend. When they finally meet the boss the next day, the same man has become their employer, and the pair vanish from the office—only to reappear the next day with an elaborate ruse: they claim to be severely ill. The ruse collapses under the weight of old office photos, which reveal the truth, and both friends are fired in short order. Their unemployment pushes them toward a risky, comic plan that will redefine their fortunes.

With work scarce, their landlord urges them to take out a bank loan to buy two cows, sparking a new fantasy of easy money. The venture collapses as the cows yield little milk, and mounting loan payments bring the bank calling. To escape, Vijayan sells the cows and hatches a plan to head to Dubai. Gafoor, Mamukkoya, a wily boatman, offers to take them on his native vessel, an uru, insisting it will detour past Dubai. Gafoor even teaches a few Arabic phrases and instructs them how to dress in thawb to pass through authorities—their minds fill with visions of wealth and glamour as they set sail. But at the shoreline they discover their misdirection: two strangers follow them, seize their suitcases, and the pair realize they’ve been duped. The suitcases turn out to contain drugs, which they hand to the police. The strangers are actually members of Ananthan Nambiar’s (the criminal kingpin) gang, who misread the duo as undercover Crime Investigation Department officers.

Undaunted, Dasan and Vijayan forge a strange new life in Chennai with the help of Dasan’s taxi-driver friend, landing work at Nambiar’s office and moving into a small suburb home. Dasan grows close to Radha, a neighbor played by Shobana, while Vijayan harbors a budding dream of acting in films. Their new circle includes Kovai Venkatesan, a powerful and well-connected Malayali businessman/politician intent on evicting locals to make space for a private hospital; the duo’s stance against eviction earns them local support and a growing reputation. Yet Nambiar isn’t done with them: he hires the feared contract killer Pavanayi, Captain Raju, to erase the threat the two pose.

Pavanayi’s arrival is marked by a show of fearsome “tools of trade”—a bomb, a gun, arrows, and a traditional Malappuram dagger—only to become the target of ridicule due to his loud, boastful personality. In a twist of fate, Pavanayi dies in a bungled attempt to murder Dasan and Vijayan, driving Nambiar’s paranoia to new heights as he fixates on these two “officers” who keep eluding him.

In the climactic sequence, Dasan and Vijayan are lured to a rundown factory under the pretext of a job opportunity, where both rival factions—Nambiar’s gang and Kovai Venkatesan’s crew—mistakenly identify each other as enemies. A chaotic, multi-front scuffle ensues, but the two friends somehow manage to corral the chaos, trapping their rivals inside as the police arrive to arrest everyone. The film closes on a hopeful note: Dasan and Vijayan are recruited into the Tamil Nadu police, joining the Crime Investigation Department, and drive away in a jeep with Radha by their side, ready to embrace a new, upright chapter in their lives.