Sigaram Thodu 2014

Murali, Vikram Prabhu, is the only son of Chellapandian, a disabled policeman who works with the State Crime Records Bureau and dreams of seeing his son become an Inspector. Yet Murali resists this path because of a childhood tragedy: when Chellapandian lost his leg in the line of duty, his wife died after fainting on hearing the news, leaving him to raise Murali alone. Murali instead aims to be a bank manager and even lands an interview for that role, setting up a tension between familial expectations and his own ambitions.

During a pilgrimage, Murali meets Ambujam, Monal Gajjar, a young doctor traveling with her grandmother Aishwarya. Ambujam initially forms a negative impression of Murali due to a few awkward moments during their journey, but her view changes when she sees Murali help Aishwarya recover from dehydration. This act reveals a character with genuine care, and she finds herself drawn to him, even as she admits a distaste for marrying a policeman—a sentiment that oddly mirrors Murali’s own evolving feelings.

Meanwhile, a spate of ATM robberies sweeps through Chennai, targeting accounts through machines that are sometimes less monitored. The robberies are led by a bank employee Shiva, aided by a martial arts instructor Lawrence. The pair move with agility and avoid capture, and Murali first encounters them during a robbery, breaking [Lawrence]’s arm in a tense clash. Injured, Lawrence vows revenge, heightening the stakes for Murali’s quiet struggle to balance duty with personal loyalties.

Back home, Murali learns that he has been accepted into the Tamil Nadu Police Academy. To please his father, he reluctantly joins the training but deliberately performs poorly, hoping to get expelled. However, SP Nagaraj—Ambujam’s father and a former colleague of Chellapa—proposes a deal: if Murali behaves badly enough to stay in the academy, he will be installed as an SI with the option to resign after 30 days, allowing him to marry Ambujam. Murali agrees, though the arrangement strains his budding relationship with Ambujam and shades the path ahead with new compromises.

Shiva and Lawrence escalate their plan, aiming to steal money from ATMs using information gleaned from international credit cards. The plot thickens when an accomplice—a forger who creates fake cards—enters the picture, though the plot thickens with a twist: the forger never saw the thieves without their bike helmets, leaving murky gaps in the investigation. Murali shifts tactics, interrogating security guards at outer-lying ATMs, suspecting that the robbers rely on local help to move money when cash runs low. One guard turns out to be an accomplice who supplies gadgets for the heists, but—even as the net tightens—the guard claims he doesn’t know the robbers’ exact location.

Determined to uncover the truth, Murali tracks the robbers’ phones, hoping to pinpoint their location once a call comes through. In retaliation, Shiva and Lawrence escalate their violence by targeting Chellapa in the ICU and kidnapping Ambujam. Murali rushes to the hospital, where he finds Chellapa still alive, and then gives chase as the robbers slip away toward the Cooum River. A decisive confrontation follows: Murali defeats Shiva and Lawrence, rescues Ambujam, and brings the danger to a close.

In the aftermath, Murali is publicly honored by the police department for thwarting the ATM robberies, with Chellapa and Ambujam watching as he is recognized for his courage and perseverance. The story closes on a note of reconciliation and a tempered, hopeful future for Murali and Ambujam, who have found a way to balance love with duty.