Tooting Broadway

2011, 90 minutes

a feature film production

Tooting Broadway is a thrilling urban crime drama to be directed by Devanand Shanmugam and produced by Joshua Clement of Indian Summer films. The film is set in 2009, one day before the Tamil Protests outside The Houses of Parliament. The location Tooting Broadway is inherently urban and home to a large community of Tamils and African community. This sets the scene for the fast paced drama, which highlights a rarely seen gang culture: Tamils. The film opens with the murder of a young girl Kayal, whose connection to characters in the film has explosive consequences. This is the story of Arun who has forged a life away from his past criminal ties. He returns to stop his younger brother committing a criminal act that could ruin his life and seriously harm someone. Arun has 24 hours to stop him or the consequences will be dire. During the day he meets up with his estranged religious junkie mother, a past girlfriend and Marcus (An encounter with him turned around the direction of Arun's life) Marcus is an ominous figure. A man whose power doesn’t need to be stated, it is simply felt. The characters all have their own stories to tell and contribute to Arun’s day, particularly his old girlfriend, Trisha, who is struggling with a hard decision on the eve of her arranged marriage. We see Arun’s character evolve from directionless second generation Asian Tamil, to the upstanding member of British society that occupies the present day. Arun meets with his brother and attempts to convince him to leave his life of crime and gang involvement. It would seem at this point that Arun has accomplished his mission and is ready to leave once more meanwhile Karuna the leader of The Wolfpack gang spends his day searching for answers as to who killed Kayal. The climax builds as Arun is convinced by his old friend Karuna to join the gang in avenging the death of the girl Kayal. Retaliation against the presumed killers, The Croydon Jaffna Boyz, is planned. However, when they reach their destination, a twist in the storyline occurs which confuses the Wolfpack and sees them fighting for their lives. The film incorporates themes such as family, society, loyalty, honour, love and obedience to the state, to propel the story above the average gang film. The infamous Tamil gangs of today are a powerful entity, so much so that, Scotland Yard have their own taskforce dedicated to stopping them. This film caters to a variety of groups, both youths and adults. It contains the commercial elements necessary to ensure a broad appeal to audiences.