Banner: Captain Cine Creations
Cast: Vijayakanth, Madhuri Idaki, Meenakshi Dikshit, Shankar, Arun Pandian, Mansoor Ali Khan, Peeli Sivam, Kalai Rani, Uma Padmanabhan, Shanmugarajan, Shams
Direction: Vijayakanth
Production: L K Suthish
Music: Sundar C Babu
With Assembly elections round the corner, obviously one expected a movie from Vijayakanth that speaks aloud his policies and political ideas.
Comes power-packed with punch typical in 'Captain' style is 'Virudhagiri'. What more he himself has directed the movie making sure that all what he thinks gets stuffed in the film.
One more to the long list of movies featuring Vijayakanth as police officer is this film, which has almost all characters mouthing laurels about him. They appear and disappear from the screen after hailing him the 'messiah of the masses'.
In a nutshell, the movie is about one upright ADGP Virudhagiri, a one-man army who captures international terrorists who are hell-bent on causing trouble to the peace and tranquility.
How he accomplishes the task has been narrated in the way one would have seen often in his flicks before. For die-hard Vijayakanth fans, there are plenty of punch dialogues besides gravity-defying stunt sequences where the protagonist flies, jumps, kicks and shoots with glee.
Besides stunts, the movie's other highlight are the songs, set to tunes by Sundar C Babu. The songs too glorify Vijayakanth and sings paeans on him. There are host of villains, who too heap laurels on Vijayakanth, before they are kicked and butchered by him.
Virudhagiri (Vijayakanth), the upright honest police officer, helps Scotland Yard police in thwarting a murder bid on the British Prime Minister. He returns to Chennai and comes to know of the troubles and violent attacks faced by Indian students in Australia.
Meanwhile, his friend's daughter goes to Australia for studies and disappears. Now Viruthagiri has double task - rescue her and end the menace forever. He sets off to Sydney and begins his task in James Bond style. How he achieves the mission is the rest.
Vijayakanth is at his best in stunt sequences. He utters punch dialogues with gusto. But he has no pair for any romantic duets in the film. He seems to have donned the dual hat of direction and action with consummate ease. There are a host of artistes including Peeli Sivam, Kalai Rani, Mansoor Ali Khan, Shanmuga Rajan and Arun Pandian.
For die-hard fans of Vijayakanth, 'Virudhagiri' is a movie to cherish. For others, it’s a regular run-of-the-mill Vijayakanth stuff.
