Panchathantiram

Panchathanthiram
Promotional poster
Directed by	K. S. Ravikumar
Produced by	P. L. Thenappan
Written by	Vijay Crazy Mohan
Starring	Kamal Haasan Simran Jayaram Ramya Krishnan Ramesh Aravind Sriman Yugi Sethu
Narrated by	Simran
Music by	Deva
Cinematography	Arthur A. Wilson
Edited by	Thanigachalam
Distributed by	Raj Lakshmi Films
Release date	28 June 2002
Running time	148 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Panchathantiram (English: Five Ruses) is a 2002 Indian Tamil-language comedy film directed by K. S. Ravikumar and co-written by Kamal Haasan and Crazy Mohan. The film features Haasan, Simran and Ramya Krishnan leading an ensemble cast that includes Jayaram, Ramesh Aravind, Sriman, Yugi Sethu, Urvashi, Aishwarya and Nagesh.

The film opened to positive reviews from critics, and was an average grosser at the box office.

Ramachandramurthy alias Ram. C. M. or Ram is a Canada-based pilot and a womaniser. In the course of an aircraft hijacking, he meets Mythili. Ram and Mythili stop the hijacking and save the passengers. Soon after, they fall in love and get married. Ram's four closest friends, Ayyapan Nair, Vendantham Iyer, Ganesh Hegde and Hanumant Reddy attend the wedding.

After marriage, Ram quits his playboy character and remains faithful to Mythili. One day, when Ram prevents Hegde's ex-girlfriend, Nirmala, from committing suicide, Mythili misinterprets the situation. She presumes that he is having an affair with her and leaves him to be with her parents. Further misunderstanding occurs when he sets out to meet Mythili, drunk, in the middle of the night and enters the wrong house.

To take his mind off Mythili for a while, Ram's four friends drive him down to Bangalore and rent a room to hire call girl Maragathavalli alias Maggie. Ram, who is still not able to forget Mythili and does not wish to betray her, gets into a fight with Maggie. To salvage the situation, Iyer hurries back to Maggie's room, only to find Maggie dead. Panicking, Nair, Iyer, Hegde and Reddy decide to discreetly dispose of the body in spite of Ram's pleas to call the police. They manage to roll the body in a blanket, dispose it in a dry river and drive back to Chennai to return to their normal lives.