Aadhavan is a 2009 Tamil action thriller, directed by K. S. Ravikumar and written by Ramesh Khanna. The film features Surya Sivakumar in the title role along with Nayantara in lead roles and Murali, Vadivelu, Anand Babu, Ramesh Khanna, B. Saroja Devi, Rahul Dev, Sayaji Shinde in its supporting cast. The music is composed by Harris Jayaraj. The film, simultaneously dubbed into Telugu as Ghatikudu, was released on October 17, 2009 during Diwali. This film was Malayalam actor Murali's last film before his death in August 2009.

Plot: Aadhavan (Surya) is a professional assassin who works for his adoptive father, Ibrahim Rowther (Sayaji Shinde) and his brother, Tharani (Anand Babu). He is contracted by Abdul Kulkarny (Rahul Dev) to assassinate prominent Judge Subramaniam (Murali), who is presently working on child kidnapping and murder cases in the Eastern Indian belt for sale of their organs to foreign countries. Aadhavan fails to shoot the judge at the first attempt but angry with himself for having missed his shot, he promises to finish his mission. He then proceeds to use the judge's innocent servant Bannerjee (Vadivelu) to get into the family home as Murugan, Bannerjee's brother-in-law. He locks up Bannerjee's real brother-in-law, Murugan (Sathyan), in a ship and threatens Bannerjee with his name all the time. Slowly Aadhavan, as Murugan, begins to win over the members of the judge's household beginning with the judge's mother (B. Saroja Devi), and eventually and finally with his niece, Thara (Nayantara). He attempts to assassinate the judge in the middle of the night and also by planting a bomb in the van while the judge is traveling to Darjeeling but both attempts fail. In Darjeeling, Aadhavan is handed over a guitar belonging to the aspiring wannabe musician, fiance of Thara, Ilaiman (Ramesh Khanna) by Thara to hide away. He plants a mobile bomb in the guitar and places it in one of the cars which soon explodes.

Thara is now suspicious but Murugan informs her in secret that he is in fact the judge's runaway son Madhavan who ran away from home when he was only ten years old. Thara soon informs all the members of the household except the judge that Murugan is Madhavan, although in private Muruguan tells Bannerjee that he was only joking and that he is not Madhavan.

However on Thara's birthday, Aadhavan shows that he is indeed Madhavan, when in a flashback it is shown that a young Madhavan carried a gift for Dara where a bomb had been planted by Madhavan's friend's mother as an act of revenge. Madhavan's father had put her husband in jail. Though Thara survives, her mother (Anu Hassan) opens the box and gets killed along with her husband in the bomb explosion. Madhavan runs away from home after stealing a gun from the police, accidentally shooting his father and killing his friend's mother who planted the bomb in the toy.

Meanwhile, Abdul Kulkarny is fed up with the attempts of Aadhavan and Ibrahim Rowther and decides to play his cards in another way. He persuades Ibrahim and his gang to surrender to the police and make a confession regarding Aadhavan. When Police ACP (Riaz Khan) confronts Aadhavan and is about to have him hauled off, Aadhavan takes the judge and Thara hostage.

He then asks Thara to bring the laptop and the memory stick where the entire information about the culprits involved in the child kidnappings and murder case are stored. Meanwhile, the police commissioner arrives to reveal a further plot twist: Aadhavan is actually indeed Madhavan, the judge's runaway son. The police had caught him when he was making his escape after his attempt to kill the judge had failed. It was then that he made his confession of being the judge's son. The police asked him to go back to the house to protect his father over a twenty four hour period everyday. This information is relayed to the judge who is tearfully grateful to his son. Meanwhile, Abdul Kulkarny attacks the vehicle in which the Judge, his son and Thara are traveling and a fight ensues where Kulkarny is ultimately killed.. all ends well and bannerjee says he has brought two new servants for the house, who ultimately turn out to be k.s.ravikumar and udhayanidhi stalin.maadhavan is asked to inspect them.He rates them as awesome jesters, and the judge hires them,ending the film successfully.