A teacher becomes a don who runs an orphanage. Tamil cinema said YES to that math.
Dorai (Arjun) is a do-gooder don. But a police force led by ACP Easwara Pandian (Prakash Raj) and his sidekick (Sathyan) are after him. However, the poor need him as he is a Good Samaritan running an orphanage. He has help from his friends (Manivannan and Vadivelu). But Dorai has a problem. His mother (Sujatha) doesn’t approve of his ways. She feels that he is just a loutish goon. There is also Anjali (Mallika Kapoor), a TV journo, who is in love with Dorai because of his dare devil ways. Dorai has a past too. He was just an honest-to-goodness school teacher, who ends up as the deathly Dorai after a fire ravages a school and kills several children. The incident forces him to take on the system of venal officials and politics. Now, Dorai’s biggest task is to nip a dark and dire politician who wants to bomb the city. The rest, as they, is all cinematic clichés.
Stunts
Arjun's signature gravity-defying fight choreography.
Acting
Prakash Raj playing a cop with delicious smugness.
Practical Effects
That school fire sequence—practical effects from a wilder era.
Director
A. Venkatesh
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Arjun was 43 playing a former school teacher turned don, proving Tamil heroes age in reverse like cinematic Benjamin Buttons.
The 'teacher-turned-vigilante' template peaked here before *Thani Oruvan* and *Master* refined it—Vathiyar is the messy prototype.
IN
