Mersal

Mersal follows a series of crimes aimed at members of the medical profession, in which doctors are either killed or abducted. A police officer investigating the case settles on a doctor as his suspect and places him under arrest, though the question of who is truly responsible, and what motive drives the crimes, remains open as the investigation continues.

Atlee directed the film, his second feature after Theri and before Bigil and Jawan. He wrote the screenplay with Ramana Girivasan and Vijayendra Prasad, and N. Ramasamy and Hema Rukmani produced it for Sri Thenandal Films. Vijay leads the cast in three roles, appearing as Vetrimaaran, Vetri and Maaran, with S. J. Suryah as Daniel Arockiaraj, Kajal Aggarwal as Anu Pallavi, Samantha Ruth Prabhu as Tara, Nithya Menen as Aishwarya Vetrimaaran and Sathyaraj as Rathnavel. Twenty performers are credited in total. The Tamil-language production runs 161 minutes and blends action, crime and thriller elements.

The film drew a substantial audience, reflected in roughly 42,000 votes on IMDb, where it holds a 7.5 rating, and about 134 votes on TMDB, where it sits at 7.3. Its release in October 2017 placed it between Atlee's early work and the larger projects that followed.