ARM (film)

The movie begins with a grandmother reciting a bed time story to her granddaughter about the lore of Chyothivilaku. Chyothivilaku is a sacred lamp which was made from a melted mixture of an asteroid which once crashed in the land of Haripuram during ancient times. The lamp was commanded to be made from the asteroid by the Edakkal King at the time, who takes it to his palace owing to its supernatural powers. During the invasion of the thugs in the land, the scared King calls upon a warrior from Haripuram called Kelu Nayanar - known popularly as Kunjikelu - to help save his citizens and his nephew Mana Varma, the heir apparent. Kunjikelu waged a one-man war against thugs at the seashore and achieved victory. After his victory over the thugs, Kunjikelu requests the Chyothivilaku as a gift. The king agrees and Kunjikelu brings it to Haripuram. Kunjikelu is romantically interested in Chothi, a woman from a lower caste. He promises Chothi on building a temple and so that the lamp is accessible to everyone without discrimination. Meanwhile smallpox spreads across Haripuram. An affected Chothi on the brink of death is saved by Kunjikelu. Chothi survives while Kunjikelu gets affected. During his bed rest, he receives a secret letter from Mana Varma which breaks his heart. Kunjikelu learns that even though he wanted the temple to have no discrimination, no one from the lower caste is allowed into the temple. Seeing all the distress, Kunjikelu dies. The grandmother ends the story by describing how their village came to be known as Chyothikkavu. The granddaughter asks if Chothi was pregnant and she dismisses the thought and that Chothi had left for Nagercoil after her recovery from smallpox. Maniyan was a crooked yet sharp robber who ends up stealing the Chyothivilaku but dies by the hands of the villagers. In the 1990s, M. V. Ajayan (Maniyan's grandson) is an electrician who is secretly in love with Chathutti Nambiar's daughter, Lakshmi. He is carrying the weight of his grandfather Maniyan's unfavourable image as a thief and the villagers mostly insult him for being from a thief's family. His first and only theft was a bunch of keys when he was young as a playful act but was returned after advice from his grandmother and mother. His friend K. P. Suresh stands up for him during the tough times. He finds himself in a difficult situation when a stranger, Sudev shows up unexpectedly on their land posing as a photographer with the intention of stealing the Chyothivilaku and sell it off to the British archives. Suresh, under the orders of Sudev, traps Ajayan and himself. Sudev reveals that the Chyothivilaku in the temple is fake and is banking on Ajayan's skill to find the real Chyothivilaku before the temple festival. He searches all possible places near Chyothikkavu but fails miserably. Lakshmi asks him to check places where a man such as Maniyan and only Maniyan could get into. He reaches a hillside and goes inside a cave near a waterfall, and finds cave paintings on the walls. Years ago, Maniyan went into hiding. The townspeople brought Nanjappa Chowta, a police inspector, to help catch him. Furious at the fact that Maniyan was nowhere to be seen, Nanjappa misbehaves with Maniyan's wife, Manikyam. Maniyan beats up Nanjappa and asks him if it was the thief or the police who came first. Maniyan, saddened by the state of his wife, plans to steal the Chyothivilakku to prove to the townspeople that Manikyam's dignity is greater than the lamp the townspeople worship so dearly, and when he does, he goes into the cave which Ajayan went to years after, and announces his win over the townspeople. But Naanu, a blacksmith and a descendant of Thekkumpadan Kollan, tells him that this is not the real Chyothivilakku. It is revealed that the letter which Kunjikelu received informed him that the Chyothivilakku was a fake one. Maniyan then plans to find the real one and sets off to the royal palace. After getting through various traps and obstacles, Maniyan finds the lamp and brings both of them to Manikyam, and claims that he will bring the fake lamp to the temple, where it was kept and worshipped. On the way, he is trapped and the townspeople, enraged by the fact that he tried to steal the lamp, try to kill him. Nanjappa tells Maniyan that he was right, thieves came first, but police were created to fight them. They chase him up a mountain, and the villagers corner him at a cliff near the waterfall. He refuses to give up the lamp but they threaten him with his wife and daughter. He puts the fake lamp back down and he lets himself go and falls into the waterfall, leading to his death. In the present, Ajayan agrees to participate in a Kalaripayattu competition, but fails at the last minute under the orders of Sudev. Since he was unable to find the lamp, he plans to run away. He goes to Chathutti Nambiar's house to meet Lakshmi and run away, but gets locked in a room and is trapped by Chathutti Nambiar. He manages to escape with the help of their caretaker but gets chased by the villagers into the same hillside where his grandfather also fell to his death. They have showed in past Maniyan and Naanu were discussing about the plan after hiding the lamp, at that moment Naanu informed he is immortal hence Maniyan is also immortal. Ajayan also falls to the waterfall, but instead of dying as said by Naanu, he survives and finds the lamp by using a key (resembling a tortoise) which his mother gave him days prior for searching the lamp, thinking it would prove useful. After a brief confrontation with Sudev and his cronies, Ajayan beats up Sudev and the original lamp is returned to Chyothikkavu. Ajayan goes to find Lakshmi and the movie ends with him riding along the car in which Lakshmi was ordered to be taken away by her father, suggesting Ajayan's second theft was nothing but his true love.(Ajayan's Second Theft is shown on the screen after this.) A final scene shows Maniyan overlooking Chyothikaavu as a pillar of light erupts from it, suggesting that Maniyan survived after all, and that he might have been the one who saved Ajayan as well. ==Cast==