Jeeva (2014 film)

Jeeva is a 2014 Indian Tamil sports drama film written and directed by Suseenthiran, who also produces the film along with cinematographer R. Madhi and art director Rajeevan under the banner of Vennila Kabadi Team. The film features Vishnu and Sri Divya in the lead cast, while Lakshman Narayan plays a supporting role. Its music was composed by D. Imman, cinematography was handled by R. Madhi and editing was by Anthony L. Ruben, while dialogue was written by Santhosh. The film opened to positive reviews from critics in September 2014.

This film is about a young aspiring Cricketer Jeeva, who dreams of playing for the India national cricket team one day. The films begins with Jeeva, sitting in a park bench and starts to narrate his life story. He is a lower middle class boy,who from the very young age is interested in cricket. He sees Sachin Tendulkar as his idol. Though his father initially does not support him, he later starts to do so on the request of his friend. Jeeva grows up and becomes a part of the school team. He excels in his game and turns out to be a star player. Seeing his performances, a local cricket club offers him a chance to join and train with them,for which his father disagrees saying that his academic performance is poor due to cricket and he may not get a job in future. In between Jeeva falls in love with his neighbour girl and they are broken up when their family comes to know about this. Jeeva starts to drink due to this heartbreak. So to make him concentrate on good deeds again, Jeeva's father agrees to let him join the cricket club.

Jeeva becomes a sensation at the club, scoring good runs in every game.His opening Partner Ranjith initially has ego clashes with Jeeva, but later they become close friends and produce great performances.They both develop and their team starts to enter higher division competitions.Then comes the tournament that selects the players for the Tamil Nadu Ranji Trophy team and as expected both Jeeva and Ranjith get selected. But the real trouble starts after joining the Team. The Tamil Nadu team mostly comprises players from Brahmin community and since Jeeva and Ranjith are from a different community, they are sidelined for most of the games.They are given chances in tough conditions where its hard to score more runs.But still they manage to put up a decent performance. Jeeva even once gets applauded by Irfan, the Captain of the Rajasthan team, who is a veteran national team member.But getting dropped in the upcoming games affects their average and their subsequent chances of getting into the team for future games. Angered by being rejected from the team, Ranjith storms into the Association office and blasts at the chairman for showing partiality towards Brahmin community and leaves with a heavy heart. Both Jeeva and Ranjith feel that their cricketing career is over. Ranjith commits suicide and Jeeva is heartbroken. In the meantime, Jeeva's school time crush Jenny meets him back and they start loving again. Her Father even agrees for their marriage and promises a job for Jeeva, provided he converts to Christianity and quits Cricket. Jeeva initially agrees but immediately tells Jenny that he cannot live without Cricket. Jeeva returns to training and he practices even harder waiting for a magic to happen that will revive his cricketing career.