Year: 2016
Runtime: 106 mins
Language: Tamil
Every detail counts. A former cop looks back on the case which left him disabled and forced him to quit the force.
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Read the complete plot breakdown of Dhuruvangal Pathinaaru (2016), including all key story events, major twists, and the ending explained in detail. Discover what really happened—and what it all means.
Deepak, a seasoned police officer in Coimbatore, begins recounting a case to a quiet listener—the son of another officer. What follows is a tangled web built from a single fateful night: three young men, Fabian, Mano, and Melvin, slam a man with their car during a heavy downpour and, in a desperate bid to avoid exposure, haul the body back to their home. The mood shifts from adrenaline to fear as the trio tries to cover their tracks while the city carries on in rain-soaked silence.
The next morning, as the city wakes, the story deepens. In Deepak’s office, a subordinate informs him of a suicide: a man named Krish has been found dead, and the victim’s license lands in the official’s hands. A paperboy, Paperboy, witnesses a car from the crime scene and shouts for attention, but his alert goes unheeded by the police. The missing thread begins to pull at the investigation: what ties Krish’s supposed death to the hit-and-run incident and the strangers who now seem connected to Shruti’s later disappearance?
Seeking answers, Deepak meets the new officer on the scene, Gautham. Trusting his instincts, [Gautham] points toward the three youths as prime suspects. They chase the leads through the city, but the initial foray yields little tangible evidence, and the team returns to the station with a fog of uncertainty hanging over them. Yet before long, another alarm bell rings: Shruti is missing, and there are bloodstains in her bedroom. Her friend Vaishnavi identifies the blood as Krish’s type, B+. The detectives begin to see a pattern—an echo of the earlier night, a hint that Shruti’s complaint against a man named Mano might be part of a larger, more dangerous chain of events.
As the investigation widens, the duo decide to tail Shruti’s fiancé, suspecting that the answer to Shruti’s disappearance might lie with the fiancé’s connections. They uncover a troubling thread: Shruti had previously filed a complaint against [Mano], and the footprint of her accusation appears to involve the circle of the three young men. They watch [Vaishnavi] closely as well, but she vanishes and later surfaces at the airport, complicating the case and intensifying the sense that a mastermind is orchestrating things from the shadows. The hunt grows colder as the night wears on, and the sense of an unseen hand manipulating events becomes almost tangible.
By the time the day ends, the story narrows to a chilling sequence: [Mano] recounts the incident from his perspective, while the paperboy’s account fills in gaps about a man with a bullet wound who seems to have committed suicide. Deepak and [Gautham] piece together a horrifying chain of events: Shruti and Krish were in the apartment, an intruder broke in to threaten Vaishnavi, and in the ensuing chaos, Krish is killed by Shruti’s fiancé, Rajiv. As the pressure mounts, the car carrying three young men—Fabian, Mano and Melvin—strikes a deadly blow to a getaway, while Rajiv attempts to shield Shruti. The plan collapses under the weight of fear, and Rajiv takes Shruti and Vaishnavi’s fiancé away to Nashik, trying to safeguard the truth as best as he can. In the process, a body is dragged from the car, a phone is retrieved, and crucial evidence slips through their fingers.
The investigation careens toward tragedy. A devastating crash injures [Gautham], and Deepak’s right foot is amputated, forcing him into retirement. The emotional toll of the case begins to show in every breath. As Deepak wrestles with his own guilt, he confronts the most searing twist of all: the person he’s been speaking to isn’t merely a colleague or an ally, but the man he came to trust—the secretly scarred [Gautham], who survived his injuries and returned to finish what he started. The revelation lands with a jolt: the killer is Deepak’s own son, [Rajiv], the very man whose love for Shruti had once seemed the only beacon of light in the room.
The true incident behind the chaos unfolds in a sequence of intimate betrayals and brutal choices. Shruti’s birthday sets the stage for a grim drama: [Vaishnavi] and Shruti’s boyfriend [Rajiv] arrive early at the apartment to surprise her, while Krish—using the alias [Mano]—enters with a companion to torment and assault Shruti on film. Rajiv intervenes, fighting Krish and ultimately killing him. The confrontation spirals as Krish’s accomplices are struck by a car, and the night spirals toward a terrible crescendo. Rajiv moves Shruti and Vaishnavi’s fiancé to Nashik to protect them, while the body and the captured footage become bargaining chips in a dangerous game.
In the end, the toll of the case sits heavily on everyone involved. Vaishnavi returns with new details, and Rajiv’s attempts to reach Deepak are stymied by the chaos of the investigation—Deepak’s decision to leave his phone behind only compounds the tragedy. Deepak dies after a gunfight with [Gautham], who himself is shot and wounded by police. As Deepak lies dying, he speaks of saving his son by keeping quiet, a confession that carries the weight of a lifetime of choices. The guilt of the cascade of consequences haunts him, but in these final moments, he finds a quiet resolve: he can die free of the burden of guilt, having borne witness to a truth that could not be spoken aloud.
Last Updated: October 03, 2025 at 06:46
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Crime investigations that unravel into deep personal tragedy and moral collapse.If you liked the gut-wrenching personal cost of the investigation in Dhuruvangal Pathinaaru, explore more movies like it. This thread gathers tense, morally complex crime thrillers where detectives are destroyed by the truths they uncover, leading to tragic and bleak conclusions.
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