Peruchazhi

The dialogues were co-written by Ajayan Venugopalan. Vijay Babu and Sandra Thomas produced the film for Friday Film House. It features Mohanlal in the lead role, and Sean James Sutton, Ragini Nandwani, Mukesh, Baburaj, Aju Varghese, and Vijay Babu appear in supporting roles. Arrora composed the background score and soundtrack, while Arvind Krishna and Vivek Harshan did the cinematography and editing. The film received mostly negative reviews from critics.

Jagannathan (Mohanlal), an Indian politician is good at solving problems using his wit and unorthodox ideas. To get rid of him, fellow politician Francis Kunjappan (Mukesh) offers him a task he has never done before in the United States which could give him enough money to fulfill his dream of owning a sports academy. Jagannathan ends up being the chief political adviser for a struggling candidate, John Kory (Sean James Sutton), in the California governor’s election campaign and uses tactics standard in Indian politics to help win the election.

Vaidyanathan got the story idea when he watched a political debate on television in the United States. He originally wrote the screenplay in Tamil and English. Ajayan Venugopalan translated it into Malayalam in 2013. The same year the film was announced, he converted it into a Malayali context. Principal photography began in mid-April 2014 in Kollam, Kerala. Set almost entirely in the United States, the majority of the film was shot in Burbank, California. Some parts were shot in Trivandrum and Kochi, where filming wrapped in July 2014.

Peruchazhi was released worldwide on 29 August 2014 on 500 screens, the widest release for a Malayalam film at the time. It was distributed in Kerala by Friday Tickets, and by Fox Star Studios in the rest of India. The film had a good opening at the box office however couldn’t keep up the collections at the box-office and ended up an average grosser. The film was released on DVD on 22 December 2014.

Sunny Kurishingal, Kory’s chief adviser, is running out of ideas to ensure Kory’s victory. Sunny asks Francis Kunjappan, a Public Works Department minister in Kerala and his friend, for advice on hiring a political consultant. Kunjappan recommends his friend (and political rival) Jagannathan, hoping to rid himself of a threat to his ministerial position. Jagannathan is a young politician and a sports enthusiast who knows no English but has a talent for solving serious problems prudently (as Kunjappan knows firsthand). However, Kunjappan thinks that Jaganathan’s unorthodox ideas will fail in the United States. Kunjappan meets Jagannathan and offers him the job for ₹30 crore (₹300 million), enough to realize Jagannathan’s dream project of owning a sports academy. Jagannathan accepts the assignment and flies to the US with his assistants, Pottakuzhi Jabbar and Vayalar Varkey.

They are met by Sunny, who explains the job and the US political system. Unlike India, there are only two major parties: Republican and Democratic. The Democratic Party is leading in California and their candidate, George Hope is well-liked by the public. Jagannathan must increase the Republican poll numbers, enabling them to win the election, and decides to use Indian political tactics; he influences the media, recruiting screenwriters to craft effective speeches. He meets a Chinese man, Dupli who sells counterfeit electronic equipment.

Jagannathan is also looking for a girl to marry. He meets a prostitute, Jessy and they fall in love. Kory’s poll numbers are rising rapidly because of Jagannathan’s tactics. One night though, Sunny and Kory visit him with bad news. Sunny tells him that a compromising video of Kory and a girl has been leaked; although all copies have been destroyed, the original is believed to be in Hope’s vault room. Jagannathan takes the video from Hope’s house, giving Sunny the message that the tape has been destroyed. The election campaign is declared over, and John Kory is certain to win. When Sunny learns that the campaign has overshot the budget, they decide to withhold Jagannathan’s fee. Sunny promises that if he makes the campaign cost-effective, he will be considered for a cabinet post.

Jagannathan asks for his fee one last time, saying that he needs it to ransom Jessy’s child, but Sunny dismisses him. Knowing that he has been cheated, Jagannathan warns Sunny that he will make Kory lose the election the following day. He comes with the money, but it is not known where it came from. Kory loses the election, which is a shock to the Republican Party. Jagannathan calls Sunny and tells him that he joined Andy and Hope, who paid his fee. With Dupli’s help, Jagannathan replaced the voting machines with duplicates. The video was not completely destroyed as Jabbar had made a copy, which was then released to the media. Jagannathan and his friends return to India with Jessy, and he opens his sports academy.