Virundhu / Virunnu Movie Review: An interesting premise, spluttered by a chaotic screenplay
Arjun has a solid screen presence, and there are some gripping scenes. But the overdose of background music and quick cutaways gets exhausting
The best thing about Virundhu (Virunnu in Malayalam) is Arjun Sarja. The actor, at 62, looks and moves like a dream, and he has a screen presence good enough to make even the most senseless scenes watchable. Poor Arjun is handed over lines like “My message to today’s youth is this...” where he straight up looks at the camera and delivers a long speech. In an unintentionally cartoonish portion, he’s made to wear a black satanic coat that looks like the raincoats we used to wear in school, and infiltrate a cult. But he gives out a sense of coolth to this bemusing material. He’s ably supported by Nikki Galrani, who, despite being handed over a character whose motivations seem unclear, manages to bring about a sense of sombre intensity.
However, their spirited performances are hampered by a screenplay that is a total mess. The suspenseful moments are all shown beforehand, and the reveal about the villain comes way too late into the narrative. There are long portions of the first half that have no bearing on the plot. None of the character motives are established well, and none of their actions seem to make sense. An auto driver leaves his family to accompany a stranger on the run. Five minutes into meeting her, he pledges to save her with his life. The screenplay’s explanation seems to be: He’s a helpful man. A character delays a crucial explanation to two people he’s hosting and instead behaves rather suspiciously with them. The screenplay’s explanation seems to be: He’s a mysterious man. Instead of organically uncovering the threads of the mystery, the film abruptly jumps from one hypercut scene to another, and it's very hard to get into the proceedings. None of the moments are allowed to linger, and none of the emotions are established. Fast-paced thrillers are fun, yes, but without having anything to hang on to, what are we supposed to be invested in?
Adding to this, in what is probably an attempt to make things more racy, we get a background score that is relentless, loud, and haphazard. Every second of the 125-minute runtime is underlined by deafening music, without a single breather. There is a line in the film that goes something like, “You should be tired now; you need rest.” Well.
There are some gripping moments. There’s an action segment in the second half that springs a surprise in the way it is set up. A sequence in the end, albeit campily staged, has good production design in an 80s-style villains-den manner. Some of the action, despite being typical one-versus-many fights, is choreographed well. And the camera maintains a cool, saturated tone that looks good on screen. But these don’t do enough to save the hastily-put-together film where there are more questions than answers. What was the point of giving Aju Varghese’s character so much screen time in the start, given he doesn’t even appear later on? What is the reason behind giving Gireesh Neyyar so much ‘good samaritan’ backstory, other than him being the film’s producer? Did nobody in the crew point out that Kathipara Junction in Chennai is not in a hill station? Why not introduce the concepts related to Arjun’s audience-looking speech earlier on instead of abruptly introducing the themes in the climax? There is a line in the film that goes something like, “There is no other case more confusing than this.” There are few lines that are truer.