Soodhu Kavvum

Soodhu Kavvuum
Theatrical Poster
Directed by	Nalan Kumarasamy
Produced by	C V Kumar
Screenplay by	Nalan Kumarasamy
Story by	Nalan Kumarasamy Srinivas Kavenayam
Starring	Vijay Sethupathi Sanchita Shetty
Music by	Santhosh Narayanan
Cinematography	Dinesh Krishnan
Edited by	Leo John Paul
Production company	Thirukumaran Entertainment
Distributed by	Studio Green
Release date	1 May 2013 (2013-05-01)
Running time	128 min
Country	India
Language	Tamil
Budget	₹2 crore (US$300,000)
Box office	₹50 crore (US$7.4 million)

Soodhu Kavvum (English: Evil Engulfs) is a 2013 Tamil black comedy-crime film directed by Nalan Kumarasamy. It features Vijay Sethupathi and Sanchita Shetty in the lead roles. The film was released on 1 May. The film's main concept is about how silly talk has engulfed people's day-to-day life and modern society. The film received positive reviews from critics and become a commercial success.

Friends Kesavan, Sekar and Pagalavan meet Das, a middle-aged man with an imaginary (revealed towards the end) girlfriend Shalu who does low-profile kidnappings for a living. Because they are broke, the trio decide to become his assistants. Das follows five rules of kidnapping (which he spells and writes as "kednaping"), the first of which is to avoid kidnapping people from political backgrounds. One day, they kidnap a young boy and successfully obtain ransom money from his father Nambikkai Kannan. Nambikkai's contractor brother has been arrested for attempted bribery by State Minister Gnanodayam, a disciplined politician who plays by the book. Impressed with Das' kidnapping skills, Nambikkai asks him to kidnap Gnanodayam's son Arumai Pragasam as revenge and offers to pay Das up to ₹2 crore (equivalent to ₹2.4 crore or US$350,000 in 2016).

The next day, the four men set out to kidnap Arumai, but are astonished to see him be kidnapped by another group. They kidnap Arumai from the other kidnappers and discover that the first kidnapping was staged by Arumai himself to extort money from his father. Arumai manages to convince Das and his men to collude with him to obtain ransom money from his father. The group demand ₹2 crore from the minister and receive the money.

An argument over splitting the cash arises between Arumai and the rest during which their van loses control and falls from a bridge. Arumai runs away with all the money. The minister seeks the assistance of encounter specialist Bramma, a brutal and merciless policeman to hunt down the kidnappers. Arumai returns to his house and hides the money in his room. Das devices a plan to kidnap Arumai again to retrieve the money. They accidentally meet Arumai and successfully kidnap him again. But Das lets Arumai go free, after making him promise that he should not tell anything about them to the police. Arumai also promises to return their share of the money. Bramma learns that Arumai staged his own kidnapping and uses this information to threaten Arumai into testifying against the Das gang.