𝗠𝗮𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗷𝗮 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗲.

 

Maharaja  is a 2024 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film directed by Nithilan Saminathan. Produced by The Route, Think Studios and Passion Studios, the film stars Vijay Sethupathi, alongside Anurag Kashyap, Mamta Mohandas, Natty Subramaniam, Abhirami, Divyabharathi, Singampuli, Aruldoss, Munishkanth, Sachana Namidass, Manikandan and Bharathiraja. The story follows a barber in Chennai who goes to the police station to retrieve his stolen dustbin, only for the police to find his intentions to be something else.

Maharaja is a quiet man who works as a barber in Ramki Saloon in Chennai. One day, a truck slams into a house he and his family were visiting, leading to his wife's death. His daughter, Jothi, survives when a dustbin accidentally falls and covers her. Maharaja and Jothi name the dustbin "Lakshmi" out of affection.

One day, Maharaja visits the local police station to report a robbery, citing that Lakshmi has been robbed, much to the cops' amusement. He recounts the incident: an armed gang raided his house, attacked him, and took Lakshmi. The police do not want to invest effort in finding an empty dustbin but accept once he promises a bribe of ₹5 lakhs for the culprits. They rope in Nallasivam, an unofficial police informant.

  

Past (2009): Selvam and Sabari are two criminals who raid houses, rape women, and kill them. Selvam lives happily with his wife, Kokila, and baby daughter, Ammu, who don't know about his crimes. One day, Sabari informs Selvam that their crimes are in the newspaper. Selvam happens to be in Ramki Saloon for a beard trim during the phone conversation and suspects that Maharaja overheard. He leaves but forgets a gold chain at the saloon that he wants to gift Ammu on her birthday. Maharaja visits Selvam's house to return it, but the police simultaneously arrive, shoot down Sabari, and arrest Selvam, who believes that Maharaja exposed him. Kokila is shocked after knowing the truth and disowns Selvam.

Present (2024): A delinquent named Dhana works in a car garage; Maharaja witnesses him get into a fight at a bar. Meanwhile, Nallasivam agrees to act as the perpetrator to "solve" the dustbin case. Over the phone, the police ask Maharaja to narrate the incident so that Nallasivam can act accordingly.

Maharaja recounts the incident, but a flashback depicts the actual event, revealing that the incident happened not to him but to Jothi. Jothi had returned home from a sports camp organised by her P.T. teacher, Aasifa, while Maharaja was at work. Three men, revealed to be Selvam, Dhana, and Nallasivam, are in the house to kill him. Selvam believes Maharaja ratted him out 14 years ago and vowed revenge, but Maharaja isn't home. Instead, the trio physically assaults Jothi and Nallasivam rapes her multiple times. Jothi is hospitalised. Back home, a fallen receipt leads Maharaja to the aforementioned bar fight Dhana was in. Dhana reveals that one of his accomplices is inside the police station itself before Maharaja beheads him. This is when he goes to the police station, as shown in the beginning, and invents a story about how his dustbin was stolen.

Inspector Varadharajan and his team take Nallasivam, now flustered, to Maharaja's home to return the dustbin. Varadharajan then reveals that his team had discovered Nallasivam's involvement in Jothi's rape while investigating Dhana's death. Thus, they carried out the ruse of bringing him to Maharaja for vigilante justice, giving Maharaja the freedom to punish him. Maharaja kills him, but not before finding out who the third accomplice is. He arrives at the construction site where Selvam works, incapacitates him, and brings Jothi to him as per her wish. Jothi tosses a bag of jewellery at his face, assuming he had come to their home for it. Selvam finds the gold chain that he had bought for Ammu on her birthday—the same one that Maharaja had come to return so many years earlier.

The scene from when Maharaja's wife died in the beginning is revealed with more context. After Selvam's arrest, Maharaja, his wife, and their daughter had come to Kokila's new house to return the chain. When Maharaja went to buy Ammu a gift from the shop across the street, a truck rammed into Kokila's home, killing everyone but Ammu, who was saved by the dustbin Lakshmi. Maharaja adopted Ammu, changed her name to Jothi, and raised her as his daughter. In the present, Selvam sees a scar on Jothi's shoulder, the same one as Ammu, and realises that he had been unwittingly complicit in his daughter's rape and assault. Ammu leaves with Maharaja and her teacher Aasifa. Out of guilt, Selvam commits suicide by falling off the building. The film concludes with Selvam’s blood seeping into Jothi’s footprint, a hauntingly poetic gesture that symbolizes his final, unspoken apology-not in words, but in sacrifice.