Sardar (2022 film)
Sardar () is a 2022 Indian Tamil-language spy action-thriller film written and directed by P. S. Mithran and produced by S. Lakshman Kumar under his production banner Prince Pictures. The film stars Karthi in a dual role alongside Raashii Khanna, Rajisha Vijayan, Chunky Pandey, Laila, Rithvik, Munishkanth, Avinash, Yugi Sethu and Balaji Sakthivel in pivotal roles. The music was composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, with cinematography handled by George C. Williams and editing done by Ruben. The film marks Hindi film actor Chunky Panday's debut and Laila's comeback to Tamil cinema. Principal photography commenced in April 2021 and took place in locations across Chennai, Mumbai, Mysore, Azarbaijan and Georgia. Sardar was released by  theatrically on 21 October 2022, prior to the Diwali week, with received highly positive reviews from critics and audience, and critically and commercially successful, Sardar has a worldwide gross of over  worldwide, making it one of the top-grossing Tamil films of 2022. A sequel is in development. Plot 
Inspector Vijay Prakash is obsessed with building his reputation that was tarnished because of his absconding father Chandra Bose, a former spy of RAW who was branded as a national traitor 32 years ago resulting in his entire extended family except for Vijay committing suicide out of shame and disgrace. Raised by a generous Police officer Paavadaisaami, Vijay tries hard to woo his childhood friend Adv. Shalini. Shalini represents a social activist Sameera Thomas in court, petitioning against One India One Pipeline, a project operated by a private water packaging company of former NSA officer Maharaj Rathore. The project is expected to unify and control the supply of potable water across India. The court refuses to accept their petition while Sameera chances upon a wheelchair-bound Victor, who happens to share her objectives. Sameera organises a protest at Rajaji Bhavan while Vijay discovers that a highly classified file containing information about the RAW agents of 1980s is stolen from Rajaji Bhavan. Deducing that Sameera has stolen the file, Vijay heads to her residence only to find her son Timothy aka Timmy alone receiving an order from a bakery. Vijay takes Timmy to find Sameera, whose location is traced to the bakery but realises that he was misled as Sameera has thrown her smartwatch in the bin of the bakery. Vijay meets Dr. Kuppusami, Sameera's acquaintance from whom he perceives that Sameera was not harbouring ill intentions and that Timmy is diagnosed with sarcoidoisis. The Police discover Sameera's corpse and her death is ruled as suicide and she is declared as a national traitor for stealing the file and is suspected to have sold it. Vijay refuses to believe it and proceeds with his investigation and perceives that Sameera was abducted and drown into death in chlorination tank as she refused to disclose about Sardar. Vijay helps Timmy post a letter and accesses Sameera's laptop, finding a video of her explaining that the water in plastic bottles sold by private companies produce toxic water as a result of being exposed to sunlight and that the intention behind One India One Pipeline is to monopolise water supply in India. Vijay and Shalini discover that Sameera is supposed to meet Agent Karapampoochi, who divulged to her about the secret location at Rajaji Bhavan and had given her a key to access it, at a railway platform the next day. They head to the platform and find the agent, who tries to escape misinterpreting the situation but Vijay chases him. However, an unknown person ultimately causes him to be killed in an accident. Vijay secures his belongings and finds an address to which Timmy posted the letter as instructed by Sameera before her death. The letter reaches the prison in Chittagong, Bangladesh that holds a mysterious elderly man, who was captivated by Bangladesh Coast Guard 32 years ago and his identity has been unknown. The prison guards contact RAW upon interpreting a code through the letter which is named CODE RED causing the RAW to realise that Sardar has been in Bangladesh. Chandra Mohan, Chief of the RAW, heads to Bangladesh and requests the prison's guards to keep the letter hidden from Sardar. Rathore perceives this and contacts the NIA, instructing them to have Sardar killed by the prison's warden. However, a prison guard lets Sardar know about the letter resulting in him escaping from the prison. Vijay arrives at a ruined petrol bunk, about whom he perceives through Karapampoochi's belongings and finds a secret tunnel, which leads him to a file. An assassin attacks Vijay with an intent to retrieve the file but he manages to defeat the assassin and secures the file. Vijay and Shalini go through the file and learn about Sardar's story. Past: in 1985, Chandra Bose, a RAW agent dubbed as Sardar, lives with his joint family performing plays. His cousin Indhrani harbours a crush on him and perceives his occupation but decides to keep it hidden for him and marries him. After a lake is poisoned at the border, Sardar is assigned by his trainer Rathore and Agent Victor on a mission to interpret the rival's conspiracies by infiltrating a camp of Pakistani Army at India-Pakistan Border. Sardar disguises himself as a native, injured due to a blast and the army officials take him to the camp for treatment where he defeats the officials and disguises himself as one of them. He escapes the camp with a photograph and a type-written copy of a file written in Chinese language. Sardar meets an agent code-named Cockroach that China conspires to control the water supply in India through One India One Pipeline and as a part of his machination, has the water poisoned through Pakistan pushing the people to buy packaged water and accept the pipeline project. Sardar deciphers that a person dubbed as Laughing Buddha is helping China with their mission; Rathore and Victor deploy Sardar to trace the Laughing Buddha. While Sardar and Indhra have a son Vijay, Sardar discovers that the National Security Advisor P.K. Abraham is the Laughing Buddha and notifies Rathore, offering to eliminate Abraham and be branded as a traitor until Rathore proves Abraham's intentions. Rathore, consumed by greed, agrees to eliminate Abraham and conspires to permanently brand Sardar as the traitor and join China in its mission for money. Sardar abducts Abraham and assassinates him; on a phone call, Sardar requests Rathore to reveal the truth to his father as the latter couldn't endure being called as the father of a traitor. Sardar deliberately has himself arrested by the Bangladesh Coast Guard by exposing his multiple passports. Rathore, meanwhile, destroys all the evidence proving China's intentions and doesn't inform Sardar's family as requested by him, resigning from his post. The family, apparently embarrassed for housing a traitor all these days, hangs themselves to death leaving Vijay while Rathore joins hands with China in their project. Present: Sardar visits a secret place, perceives Rathore's treachery, his family's mass suicide and the implementation of One India One Pipeline and grows infuriated. Paavadaisaami obliges to his duty by helping the RAW apprehend Vijay for luring Sardar while Shalini heads to Victor who has been housing Timmy. Chandra Mohan orders Victor and Timmy to be secured and brought to the headquarters and his orders are implemented; However, they discover that Sardar disguised himself as Victor while Shalini finds Victor dead and an assassin tied and captivated in the cupboard. Sardar defeats the other agents and infiltrates the vault with Timmy by chopping an agent's finger to access the vault through his fingerprints. The RAW agents unsuccessfully attempts to apprehend Sardar while the latter has a confrontation with Maharaj, who divulges that he killed Sardar's entire family by strangling them to death as Indhra overheard their conversation about eliminating Abraham through a radio, having accessed the frequency and tried to reveal the truth to Sardar's father. He later staged it as a suicide and left Vijay for the latter to endure the social stigma of being a traitor's son. Vijay hears this and grows enraged. Sardar takes a truck filled with sodium and escapes with Timmy intending to blast the pipelines at the water plant. Discerning Sardar's plan, Rathore heads to the water plant to desist him and unleashes guards to kill Sardar but the latter defeats them and intrudes the plant with the truck, asking Timmy to be out of the plant for rescuing him from the blast. Vijay reaches the plant and from Timmy, discovers Sardar's plan and helps him orchestrate it successfully. Sardar throws the truck of sodium into water, successfully blasting the pipelines and killing Rathore and ultimately meets Vijay, who intends to expose his virtue but Sardar desists as the public shall lose their trust in the government if Rathore's conspiracies are exposed and leaves. Sameera is proven innocent, the Government of India scrap One India One Pipeline while Vijay is suspended from the Police force for not being able to nab Sardar alive. Chandra Mohan discloses to Vijay that he was the one who orchestrated his suspension from the Police force and recruits Vijay as the agent in RAW and assigns him on a mission in Cambodia, giving him an unrevealed code name. 