CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MOVIE “THALAPATHI”

(NATURAL LAW)

Submitted by

M.vishal anand
Reg. No. BC0150033

Under the Guidance of

Ms. Pranusha kulkarni

Assistant Professor

TAMIL NADU NATIONAL LAW SCHOOL

(A State University established by Act No. 9 of 2012)
Tiruchirappalli
Tamil Nadu – 620 009

MARCH – 2017

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Ms.pranusha kulkarni Assistant Professor in juris prudence
Tamil Nadu National Law School
Tiruchirappalli
Tamil Nadu – 620 009

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the project work entitled “CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MOVIE
“THALAPATHI” (NATURAL LAW)” is a bonafide record of the research work done by
(M.vishl anand), under my supervision and guidance. It has not been submitted by any other
University for the award of any degree, diploma, associate ship, fellowship or for any other similar
recognition.

Place: Tiruchirappalli
Date:
Signature of the Guide

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M.vishal anand
Reg. No. BC0150033 – II Year B.COM. LLB. (Hons.)
Tamil Nadu National Law School
Tiruchirappalli
Tamil Nadu – 620 009

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 DECLARATION

I, M.vishal anand, do hereby declare that the project entitled “CRITICAL

ANALYSIS OF THE MOVIE “THALAPATHI” (NATURAL LAW)” submitted to
Tamilnadu National Law School in partial fulfillment of requirement for award of degree
in Under Graduate in Law to Tamilnadu National Law School, Tiruchirappalli, is my
original research work. It and has not been formed basis for award of any degree or
diploma or fellowship or any other title to any other candidate of any university.

Counter Signed Signature of the Candidate

Project Guide

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

At the outset, I take this opportunity to thank my Professor Ms. pranusha kulkarni
from the bottom of my heart who has been of immense help during moments of anxiety and
torpidity while the project was taking its crucial shape.

Secondly, I convey my deepest regards to the Vice Chancellor Dr.KAMALA

CHANDRAN and the administrative staff of TNNLS who held the project in high esteem by
providing reliable information in the form of library infrastructure and database connections in
times of need.

Thirdly, the contribution made by my parents and friends by foregoing their precious
time is unforgettable and highly solicited. Their valuable advice and timely supervision paved
the way for the successful completion of this project.

Finally, I thank the Almighty who gave me the courage and stamina to confront all
hurdles during the making of this project. Words aren’t sufficient to acknowledge the
tremendous contributions of various people involved in this project, as I know ‘Words are Poor
Comforters’. I once again wholeheartedly and earnestly thank all the people who were involved

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directly or 1indirectly during this project making which helped me to come out with flying
colors.

chapterisation

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalapathi

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chapter 1

Introduction

Story line

Chapter 2

Natural law

How does it relate natural theorey?

Thomas Aquinas on natural law

Chapter 3

Kinds of punishment

Retributive theorey

Chapter 4

Conclusion

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8
 CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MOVIE “THALAPATHI” (NATURAL
LAW)

INTRODUCTION:

“THALAPATHI”, which was starred by rajinikanth and mamooty. The story revolves around
two stronger protagonists (rajinikanth and mamooty) who control their native place by running a
parallel judicial system which bypass the government institution in their village. They act as the
judge, jury, & executioner in their village, unrivalled in their power they have nil respect for the
established legal institutions & so do the people of their town. So this finally leads to a clash
between the government authorities & these self-proclaimed sovereign.

Storyline:

A 14-year unmarried young girl gives birth to a baby in a secluded place. Fearing societal
backlash, she abandons the baby by placing it in a train. An old woman finds the baby in the
train and decides to adopt it. She names him Surya. Surya (Rajinikanth) grows up to be an honest
person who cannot tolerate injustice happening to the poor. But Surya keeps thinking about the
reason his biological mother abandoning him. Surya only has a red shawl as an identity of his
mother as she had placed the new born baby along with a shawl in the train.

Deva (Mammootty) is a powerful man in the locality/slum that Surya inhabits who helps the
poor fighting for justice. Surya gets into a clash with Ramana, the right hand man of Deva.
Ramana 2molests a girl which makes Surya attack him. Ramana dies from his injuries the next
day. Deva is angered knowing this and Surya is imprisoned. But when Deva realises the mistake
committed by Ramana, he understands that Surya is genuine and releases him. This makes Surya

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and Deva close to each other as both of them have similar ideology. Deva also make Surya his
"Thalapthy".

Arjun (Arvind Swamy) is the new deputy collector and he wants to end all means of violence in
the city. Arjun is the son of Kalyani (Srividya) and her husband (Jaishankar). Kalyani is actually
the mother of Surya who had abandoned him. Although Kalyani abandoned her first child, she
realised the mistake later and keeps constantly worrying about the fate of the child. Later she is
married to Jaishankar and he knows about her past life but accepts her despite that. Surya falls in
love with a Brahmin girl, Subbalakshmi (Shobana), and they both decide to marry. Surya by now
has turned into a hero figure for the people in his slum, and they are devoted utmost to him and
Deva. Subbalakshmi, however, does not agree with Surya's necessity to use violence, and tries
persuading him against it, but Surya says he does not know otherwise. Deva goes along with his
family to meet Subbalakshmi’s father to get the alliance fixed between her and Surya.
Subbalakshmi’s father, an orthodox priest, is not interested in getting her married to Surya as he
is an orphan who does not know about his biological parents. Her marriage subsequently is
arranged with Arjun. Surya is angered hearing this and decides to break up with Subbalakshmi.
Later Subbalakshmi marries Arjun.

Arjun’s main targets remain Surya and Deva as they are frequently involved in violence.
Although they protest for justice, Arjun feels it to be against the law and tries to arrest them but
all his efforts fail. One day, Surya meets Padma (Bhanupriya) and her child. Padma is the widow
of Ramana. Surya feels guilty that he is responsible for Padma’s sufferings. Deva, being the
large-hearted slum lord that he is, takes care of Padma and her kid and treats them as members of
his own family. Padma, however, one day, confesses to Deva that the situation is becoming
unbearable and that men (from the slum, including from Deva's own gang) with dishonourable
intentions are concocting frivolous reasons to make untoward advances towards her. Angered by
this, Deva convinces Padma and Surya and Padma is married to Surya, who also takes care of
Padma's daughter.
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One day, during a medical camp organised by Arjun, Kalyani meets Padma and her daughter
along with a shawl (the same shawl on which Kalyani placed her baby in the train). She starts
crying seeing the shawl understanding that her son is somewhere in the nearby locality.

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Jaishankar understands that Surya is Kalyani’s son and Arjun’s step brother. Jaishankar meets
Surya and informs the truth but Surya prefers not to inform this to Kalyani as she would feel bad
knowing that her son has grown to be a wanted criminal.

Surya promises to Jaishankar that he will not harm Arjun as he is Surya’s step brother. There is
also a long standing feud between Deva (by virtue of association, Surya too) and Kalivardhan
(Amrish Puri), who is Deva's main rival. In due course of time, among other incidents, Surya
blurts out the facts about Arjun to Deva when Deva starts doubting Surya's intentions. Deva feels
proud that despite knowing Arjun is his brother, Surya preferred staying with Deva supporting
him. Surya values his friendship with Deva above everything. Finally Deva and Surya decide to
surrender and they both go to meet Arjun, who has also been made aware of who Surya is.
Suddenly, Kalivardhan’s men come and shoot towards Deva. Surya comes in between but one
bullet catches Deva in the heart and he dies.

Surya is angered and retaliates by killing Kalivardhan. He surrenders to the police but is not
arrested, the police citing lack of evidence. When Arjun is transferred to another city and he
relocates with his wife, Kalyani prefers staying with Surya.

Natural law:

The term natural law is ambiguous. It refers to a type of moral theory, as well as to a type
of legal theory, but the core claims of the two kinds of theory are logically independent. It does
not refer to the laws of nature, the laws that science aims to describe. According to natural law
moral theory, the moral standards that govern human behavior are, in some sense, objectively
derived from the nature of human beings and the nature of the world. While being logically
independent of natural law legal theory, the two theories intersect. However, the majority of the
article will focus on natural law legal theory
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According to natural law legal theory, the authority of legal standards necessarily
derives, at least in part, from considerations having to do with the moral merit of those standards.
There are a number of different kinds of natural law legal theories, differing from each other
with respect to the role that morality plays in determining the authority of legal norms. The

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conceptual jurisprudence of John Austin provides a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for
the existence of law that distinguishes law from non-law in every possible world.
Classical natural law theory such as the theory of Thomas Aquinas focuses on the overlap
between natural law moral and legal theories. Similarly, the neo-naturalism of John Finnis is a
development of classical natural law theory. In contrast, the procedural naturalism of Lon L.
Fuller is a rejection of the conceptual naturalist idea that there are necessary substantive moral
constraints on the content of law. Lastly, Ronald Dworkin theory is a response and critique of
legal positivism. All of these theories subscribe to one or more basic tenets of natural law legal
theory and are important to its development and influence.

How does it relates to natural law theory?

Natural law jurist Herachitus says, everything in nature has a reason and order. Nature is
not the name of any particular thing it is system of rules according to them. Everything in nature
has a reason man is the creature of nature so man should be reasonable as everything in nature
has a system so man also has a law.in this movie the hero surya and his friend deva is a local
gansta who helps the needy and serve poor by providing justice in their own way by not
following the law. This is been related by the movie that the hero and his friend created a new
new parallel government to punish the criminals who are escaped under law. Thus this movie set
an example for natural law.

Thomas Aquinas on natural law:

Aquinas bases his doctine on the natural law, as one would expect, on his understanding
of God and His relation to His creation. He grounds his theory of natural law in the notion of an
eternal law (in God). In asking whether there is an eternal law, he begins by stating a general
definition of all law: Law is a dictate of reason from the ruler for the community he rules. This
dictate of reason is first and foremost within the reason or intellect of the ruler. It is the idea of
what should be done to insure the well ordered functioning of whatever community the ruler has
care for. (It is a fundamental tenet of Aquinas' political theory that rulers rule for the sake of the
governed, i.e. for the good and well-being of those subject to the ruler.) Since he has elsewhere
shown that God rules the world with his reason Aquinas concludes that God has in His intellect

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an idea by which He governs the world. This Idea, in God, for the governance of things is the
eternal law.

1. God designed natural law so that humans participate in God’s eternal law. As
rational creatures we can determine and seek that which is good and avoid that which is
evil.
2. According to Thomas Aquinas, the first precept of natural law is “good is to be done
and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.” Every subsequent moral precept is based on
this “first precept of natural law.” (By the way, you should memorize the underlined
quote and never forget it. It is very useful and it will strengthen your understanding of
natural law).
3. The #1 mistake people make about natural law is that they assume that natural law
is secular and non-religious. Not true according to Saint Thomas Aquinas. Saint
Thomas teaches that the virtue of religion, sacrifice, holidays, and even a natural
priesthood pertains to the natural law. Moreover, avoiding idols and worshipping the
Creator are derived precepts of the natural law.
4. Natural law is common to all the nations. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian,
Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, animist…natural law applies to you. This means
that the testimony of natural law leads one to have a true religion. Thomas Aquinas
would say that natural law in the heart of man would argue against idolatry, polytheism,
atheism, etc. Hence, the idolatry of, say, Hinduism is banned under natural law.
5. Natural law is insufficient for human beatitude and salvation. Thomas Aquinas is
really clear about this. He teaches that natural law is not enough. A human person can
never erase natural law from his heart, but he can mitigate its force in his life. And even if
a human person followed natural law perfectly, he would not attain to Heaven, because
sanctifying grace is needed to enter the Beatific Vision (vision of God). So then, God
gave “Divine Law” in the form of the Old Testament but perfectly in the New Testament.
The New Law of the New Testament is really the Holy Spirit who communicates mercy,
grace, and love to our souls and body. Hence, the human person after Adam and Eve
needs Divine Law to perfect what natural law cannot do.

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5
Theories of Punishment (kinds of Punishment under Criminal Law)

1) INTRODUCTION – 

A Punishment is a consequence of an offense. Punishments are imposed on the wrong doers with
the object to deter them to repeat the same wrong doing and reform them into law- abiding
citizens. The kind of punishment to be imposed on the criminal depends or is influenced by the
kind of society one lives in. The aim of the different theories of punishments is to transform the
law-breakers into law-abiders.

2) THEORIES OF PUNISHMENT –

The different theories of Punishment are as follows –

 Deterrent Theory
 Retributive Theory
 Preventive Theory
 Reformative Theory
 Expiatory Theory

Retributive theory

This theory is based on the idea of vindictive justice, or a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye.
The principle is that if a man has caused the loss of a man's eye, his eye one shall cause to be
lost; if he has shattered a man's limb, one shall shatter his limb; if a man has made the tooth of a
man that is his equal fall out, one shall make his tooth fall out.
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This is to pay back the wrong-doer for his wrong-doing. It means that the wrong-doer has to be
made to suffer by way of retaliation, even if no benefit results thereby to him or to others.

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Historically, at first the instinct or the impulse of revenge was gratified by retaliatory measures
on the part of the individual who suffered by the crime committed, or in the case of murder, by
his relatives.

Later, the state took away the right of retaliation from individuals because it was believed that
since the criminal has broken the law and hurt someone, he deserves to suffer.

It was also argued by those who were in favour of retribution that the victim of crime and/or his
relatives and friends will refuse to cooperate with society if the offender is not brought to justice.
Thus, assuming the function of revenge by the state really constituted the beginning of criminal
law.

It is easy to dismiss the retributive theory with the remark that it is a remnant of the barbaric
conception of vengeance. But the fact is that the early Greeks and many ancient spiritual books
decried that one has an obligation to avenge the killing of a kinsman.

The traditional code of honour still prevalent in many societies is that a gentleman must, at the
risk of life, resent an insult to the extent of seeking to remove it with the blood of the offender.

Even in the modern times, popular sentiment is that if a wife of a person is insulted or violated,
he need not wait for a policeman; it is his duty to knock the offender down. Such a view prevails
in almost all enlightened nations.

But the problem with the retributive theory is that it fails to suggest an acceptable criterion
whereby to discriminate between just and unjust punishment. Kant offers us the principle of
equality between the crime and the penalty. This sounds simple in the case of murder-a life for a
life. But it is obviously not capable of being extended.

Can crime and punishment really be equated? What penalty can equal the crime of rape,
kidnapping, forgery, dishonesty and so on? For the state to exercise the same amount of brutality

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against the criminal that the criminal exercised against his victim would be demoralising to any
community.

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This theory of vengeance was, however, rejected with the ingress of the idea of refinement and
the humanising of society. It came to be argued that the passion of revenge cannot be allowed to
drive out reason.

The feeling of retaliation will create demand for making punishment as severe as possible. It will
only array man against man. The idea of treatment of criminals on the other hand will place a
premium upon violence against criminals.

Besides, in modern society, neither the victims of crime support the idea of physical torture of
criminals nor the public opinion would tolerate sanguinary methods of punishment.

In fact, now the popular demand is to eliminate all methods of punishment that cause physical
suffering. The idea of doing away with severe punishment for taking revenge does not mean that
the offender will escape all pain. Punishment will be awarded to the criminal but it would be
devoid of the idea of vengeance.

The argument is that if a criminal is not punished, the public would feel frustrated and its
obedience of the law would appear meaningless. Punishment of criminals would help to unify
society against crime and criminals and also maintain respect for law. If law-violators and law-
conformists receive the same treatment, there would be no reason to abide by the law.

Thus, punishment of the criminal will make people rally in support of law enforcement,
encourage them in their fight against crime, and help the authorities to maintain the public sense
of justice.

Today, not only the idea of revenge in punishment is rejected but even the idea of punishing the
offenders is criticised by many scholars. The argument that is most accepted is that we should
hate the crime but not the criminal.

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There are many ways for achieving social solidarity. What is needed is the measures designed to
prevent crime. The idea of retribution is to be totally rejected. Further arguments against
retribution are:

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1. It is now scientifically established through various empirical studies that the functioning of
social systems and social structures is more responsible for crime than individual himself. As
such, would it be logical to give retributive punishment to those who commit crimes due to force
of circumstances rather than their personality traits?

2. Protecting the interests of criminals is as important today as protecting the interests of society
or the victims. The punishment should therefore be proportional to the loss incurred.

3. The present society stresses humanitarianism and scientific progress. The movement in such a
society should be to prevent crime rather than make criminal suffer, which is largely repressive.

4. Since almost all prisoners return to society, it is necessary that they must not be so stigmatised
that they cannot take up lawful pursuits upon their release. Retributive punishment only makes
criminals confirmed enemy of society.

5. Religious conscience and moral and ethical principles have always emphasised the importance
of forgiveness, pity, mercy, charity, and considered these values as supreme values. It is,
therefore, only moral and proper to pardon the criminal.

6. Holding that if society fails to punish the offender, the victim and his relatives may take the
law in their own hands is not correct. Today, the victims of crime tend to shrink from the idea of
subjecting criminals to physical torture. In fact, the victim feels satisfied if his loss is restored or
he is properly compensated. He disregards the causes that produce a criminal or the measures
adopted for dealing with criminals.

7. Resorting to the argument that a person can be prevented from indulging in crime by awarding
him retributive punishment is invalid. Mackenzie has stated that it is only when an offender sees
the punishment of his crime to be the natural or logical outcome of his act that he is likely to be

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led to any real repentance and it is only this recognition that is likely to lead others to genuine
abhorrence of crime.

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In spite of these arguments, it may be pointed out that though reformation and in some cases
deterrence receive more attention, yet retribution too continues to remain one of the purposes of
punishment.

There are cases where retributive punishment is still considered necessary. The retributive
punishment of imposing death penalty on offenders like Ranga and Billa in Delhi who had killed
Chopra children was not condemned by society, nor has the retributive punishment to the
terrorists of Punjab and Kashmir who had killed a large number of innocent persons of all
religions Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims been described as severe and unjustified.

Rather, people look forward to having such offenders punished severely. It is in such cases of
crime that retribution stands out distinctly as a purpose of punishment.

SURYA AS A RETRIBUTIVIST:

In this film it is very clearly seen that surya and deva even though going above the hand of law
and taking vigilatainsm into a whole new level follows the principle of retributive theory of
punishment. He follows the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This is very
much clearly seen in the scene when kalivardhan’s henchman tries to kill surya’s friend deva.
After this scene surya knowing this incident he kills kalivardhan’s henchman in public place.
Moreover it is very important to note that surya in the whole film does not hesitate even for a
single second to kill the injustice people ruthlessly he does not care when it comes to stabbing
them or shooting them all he cares about is the fact that the suffering that they had inflicted on
the people must be inflicted on them this was solely because of the actions that they had
committed. In the process of exterminating the injustice people he makes sure that they feel the
same suffering that they had inflicted on many people all these days. It is at this point of time
that surya proves himself to be a textbook retributivist.

CONCLUSION:

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Bibliography:

https://www.lawctopus.com/academike/retributive-theory-of-punishment-a-critical-analysis/

https://people.wku.edu/jan.garrett/302/aquinlaw.htm

https://www.lawctopus.com/academike/retributive-theory-of-punishment-a-critical-analysis/

https://www.lawctopus.com/academike/retributive-theory-of-punishment-a-critical-analysis/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalapathi

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