Lee (film)

Lee is a Tamil language film released on February 17 2007. The film starred Sibiraj, Prakash Raj and Nila in the lead roles. The film was produced by noted actor and Sibiraj's dad, Sathyaraj.

Plot

Leelatharan, or Lee, (Sibiraj) as he is fondly known, is part of a close-knit group of friends of 10-11 in number. They work in local odd-jobs in the Triplicane area and make their living and play football in their leisure time. This is a fun-loving group of young boys, but one can tell that what keeps them together is not just casual jobs, but a bond older and stronger than this…

Part of this group is also Chellam, short for Chellamaal (Nila), who works at a hospital for the mentally challenged. Chellam has met them randomly a few times and now, friendship has started to bloom.

One day, Lee and his friends buy a handgun and make a plan to shoot one of the top ministers in the state. They actually manage to get close enough to him to fire shots, but the man escapes behind his bulletproof glass. Unfortunately, Chellam sees this happening and is shocked. She confronts them and demands to know if they are terrorists in the making!

We are taken to the past with Lee and his friends at college…

Lee and his friends were part of their college’s football team, with the fiery and inspiring Butthiran (Prakashraj) as their coach. The head of the institution Rangabashyam (Jageer) has an unruly son and powerful political contacts. One day, he asks Butthiran to take his son too as part of the team, talent or none, notwithstanding. The stern and correct Butthiran refuses. He tells him quite simply that Lee and the rest of the boys are not casual players, but selected for their various talents from all over the state by him, whereas Rangabashyam’s son is little more than a rowdy troublemaker. He bluntly tells Rangabashyam to advise his son to “clean up” his goonda and druggie act and put his game together instead.

Rangabashyam is enraged and throws ALL of them – Lee and his team, as well as Butthiran – out of his college. Unfazed, this stoic group joins a rival college and becomes a force to be reckoned with in their football league. They become such an asset to their new Alma Mater that they stand to hold their college’s name proud with many victories in various football matches. Much to Rangabashyam’s fury, Lee and his team enter a football tournament and win it! He turns Butthiran’s refusal and all the events that led to this tournament win into a vendetta and vows to take revenge over this group of boys and their coach.

He works at increasing his brawn power and becomes the head of the state’s Sports Development Authority. With this post, he creates big hurdles for Butthiran’s team and does not allow them to participate in any of the football matches being conducted in and out of the state. The situation becomes so bad for Lee and his friends that one of them even commits suicide.

Things turn very bad for our young heroes and they just disappear from Rangabashyam’s line of fire with revenge in their hearts. Meanwhile, Rangabashyam exults in his victory as he becomes a powerful Minister in the state.

The story moves to the present and Chellam finally understands the intensity of emotions in Lee and his friends and offers her support…

The rest of the film revolves around Lee’s revenge over Rangabashyam – how he and his friends show the world through the media and their confrontations with the villains on not just their tragedy, but how corruption reigns in the world of sports development. The message is, essentially, that there are great sportsmen across the country and in little-known towns and villages of Tamilnadu – youngsters who aspire to play the sport of their passion well, given the right encouragement and training. Yet, thanks to short-sightedness and corruption, they are not given the opportunities they deserve, resulting in the entire nation being pushed backward in the world arena.

At the end, Lee does not just become another victim of a corrupt system or at the other extreme, a vigilante. He has after all committed crimes, necessary though they may have been, and so he serves his prison term and resumes his passion for football – he becomes a coach, just like his inspiration, Butthiran.