To Protect; titled The Police in the UK)[1] is a 2003 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film written and directed by Gautham Vasudev Menon and produced by Kalaipuli S. Thanu.

It stars Suriya and Jyothika, alongside Jeevan, Daniel Balaji, Devadarshini, Yog Japee, Vivek Anand and Sethu Rajan.

Anbuselvan, an orphan and an honest stone-hearted IPS officer in the Chennai City Police, works as the ACP in the Crime Branch.

Anbuselvan and his IPS friends Shrikanth, Arul and Ilamaran are recruited as a part of a special unit of police officers, who are battling organised crime in Chennai.

The unit is finally disbanded by human rights authorities when they assassinate five gangsters in three months, believing that killing them is more beneficial than arresting them and dealing with the legal system, and so Anbuselvan is posted to duties in the control room.

Meanwhile, Agaram Sethu, a gangster who escaped from encounter operations, meets his estranged brother Pandiya, who returns to Chennai after 14 years of crime life in Maharashtra.

Pandiya and his thugs kidnap Maya and seemingly kill Anbuselvan, who later survives and is admitted to the hospital by Shrikanth and Arul.

[4][5] Gautham Vasudev Menon revealed that he was inspired to make the film after reading of articles on how encounter specialists shoot gangsters and how their families get threatening calls in return.

[11] Menon did a rehearsal of the script with the actors, a costume trial with Jyothika and then enrolled Suriya in a commando training school before beginning production, which he described as a "very planned shoot".

[9] To prepare for the role, Suriya met real-life police officers Vijayakumar and Shailendra Babu and discussed about their encounter experiences.

[citation needed] The film had an alternate ending which showed Jyothika's character surviving; it was released only on DVD as an extra.

[27] Producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah approached him to direct the Hindi version of the film in 2010 as Force and Menon initially agreed before pulling out again.

[29] Menon and Kalaipuli S. Thanu also floated an idea of an English version with a Chechnyan backdrop, though talks with a potential collaboration with Ashok Amritraj collapsed.