- An aspiring director targets a ruthless gangster because he wants to make a violent gangster film. His discreet attempts to research the gangster fail miserably. Finally when he gets caught snooping, things hit the fan.
- When Karthik is given a task by his producer to come up with a gripping gangster flick infested with heavy dosage of violence, he focuses on Sethu, a ruthless gangster surrounded by quirky yet scary henchmen. Karthik discreetly tries his best to find out about Sethu to develop a film script, but fails miserably in all his attempts. However when he finally gets the chance to gain an insight into Sethu's life, disaster strikes as he gets caught in the mêlée following the discovery of a mole within Sethu's gang.—PipingHotViews
- Karthik (Siddharth) is an assistant director who is thrown out of a reality new filmmakers show, as his short film was disappointing. Heartbroken, Karthik has the support of one of the judges (Aadukalam Naren) who believes he has the stuff to be a great director and is willing to back him if he does a script on a real life gangster! Karthik travels to Madurai looking to make a film based on the life and times of the notorious rowdy Assault Sethu (Bobby Simha). He teams up with his old friend Oorni (Karunakaran) and the duo tries to dig up enough backgrounder for their film. They get help from Kannama (Lakshmi Menon), the daughter of the women who makes idly's for Sethu! However mid-way through their script research, they experience an unexpected twist and realizes they have caught a tiger by its tail.—Sethu
- Karthik Subramani is a short-film maker and aspires to make a feature film. He participates in a talent search programme (like Naalaya Iyakkunar) and is in the semifinal round. The show's two judges include a highbrow film director Mukil, who trashes Karthik's attempt at filmmaking, and a profit-oriented producer Sundar who riles against Mukil and declares that Karthik made the best film among the contestants. Though Mukil eliminates Karthik from the contest, Sundar offers to produce a film with Karthik as the director, and both the judges storm out of the show. The next day, Sundar is annoyed that Karthik took his words seriously and came to meet him. He is uninterested in the script that Karthik wants to film and instead suggests that he wants to make a gangster film along with the style of Nayakan, Thalapathi, The Godfather, etc. Karthik takes this suggestion to heart and sets his mind on documenting the life of a gangster and making a film script out of it.
With help from his journalist uncle, Karthik finds out about "Assault" Sethu, a ruthless gangster in the city of Madurai, and decides that he will make a film about Sethu's life. He travels to Madurai and enlists the help of a reluctant college friend Oorani, to conduct surveillance on Sethu and his men. Since Karthik and Oorani are afraid of approaching Sethu directly, they plot to develop contacts with two of Sethu's top henchmen. They also try to obtain information from an old shopkeeper, "Petti Kadai" Pazhani, who has been around since Sethu was a child. To get closer to Sethu, Karthik also puts up an act of reciprocating the love of Kayalvizhi, whose mother cooks for Sethu. Because of their various attempts to seek information about Sethu, they arouse the suspicion of Sethu's right-hand man Rasu, who puts an underling Sounder to watch Karthik and Oorani. Sounder becomes good friends with Karthik, and Karthik uses his trust to plant a wireless microphone in a music player that he lends to Sounder. In a quick turn of events, Sounder is busted as a mole for an opposing gang and is killed.
Sethu finds out the tap placed in the music player that Sounder was carrying and quickly locates Karthik and Oorani. When about to die at the hands of Sethu, Karthik confesses that he was spying on Sethu so that he could make a movie about his life, along the lines of Nayakan, Thalapathi, The Godfather, etc. Sethu is enamoured by the prospect of his life being portrayed on the big screen and initiates Karthik and Oorani into his gang so that they can document his life. He and his gang members boast of their crimes and take Karthik along for their gang activities. Karthik gleefully documents everything and is ecstatic that he has a fantastic story in hand for his debut movie. When he is ready to leave Madurai with all the information that he ever needed, Kayal discovers that Karthik used her for information and is vengeful. Sethu invites him to a send-off party. During the partying, Kayal remarks that Sethu should act as the main character in the gangster film about his life. Sethu takes this seriously and threatens Karthik to direct the film with Sethu playing himself on screen. Distraught at the sudden turn of events, Karthik tries to flee out of Madurai but is caught by Sethu's gang. They also kidnap the producer of Karthik's film and force them both to make the gangster movie.
Karthik reluctantly agrees but soon finds that Sethu and his men cannot act in front of a camera. He hires an acting coach Muthu, who sets up a rigorous teaching schedule for Sethu and his men. After a period of training, Muthu thinks that while the others are hopeless, Sethu has at least a sliver of acting talent. The production of the movie commences, and Karthik becomes quite frustrated with Sethu's acting ineptitude. Still, he perseveres with the movie and has Muthu coach Sethu in emotional crying scenes in between breaks. Finally, the production is wrapped. Sethu and his men are on cloud nine and create great fanfare for the movie's release. The film releases, and during the first show, Sethu gets the shock of his life. Realising that a serious gangster film featuring Sethu would be a disaster, Karthik surreptitiously changed the story of the film into a comedy. He edits and dubs over Sethu's voice in such a way that the film shows Sethu as a guy who achieves everything in life by crying. The film's title, A. Kumar is revealed to be Azhuguni (Crybaby) Kumar and not Assault Kumar as Sethu had thought. The film receives a tremendous response from the audience, who left theatres in tears after laughing their guts out. Sethu is mad at being made a fool by the world and searches for Karthik. However, Karthik and the rest of the crew go into hiding in anticipation of Sethu's wrath.
While searching for Karthik and his crew, Sethu encounters events that make him realise that the fear that people have for him does not equal respect. He finds that by making people laugh inadvertently through his film, he earned true respect than respect by fear, such as his mother, who never spoke to him, ever since he became a gangster and finally spoke to Sethu after seeing his film. In a final face-off, Sethu and Karthik meet each other by accident, as the latter is on his way to deliver the video recordings of the former's boastful confessions to the police. Sethu pardons Karthik in a dramatic way, and Karthik chooses to put Sethu's past behind him and let him seek a new life. They each go on to pursue careers in the movie industry. Karthik now has started to use Sethu's gang to bully people such as Vijay Sethupathi into acting in his movies, while Sethu started working as an actor by acting in a film made by Vetrimaaran. Sethu also has married Sounder's wife, Ganga, while Karthik married Kayalvizhi.
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