Virudh

There are 3 garish product placements in the movie – Elf Lubricants, Asian Paints and Western Union (WU) (the last one mentioned at an inopportune moment when John Abraham dies and then, the process of using WU is explained as part of the memory of the dead son!)

Now that we have that out of the way, Virudh is a songless worth-a-watch flick starring the Big B (Amitabh Bachan), Sharmila Tagore, John Abraham and a new star - Anusha Dandekar. Sanjay Dutt essays a special role in the movie and is dominant in the second half. The first half of the movie is fairly humorous and if the movie fails, it is in the second part. What Bollywood could do with some snipping!

Virudh tells the story of a retired couple, whose son returns from London with a girl in tow. The old couple absorbs the new woman in the family to ensure their son’s happiness. When the son gets stuck in an altercation he should not have entered, the life of the couple takes a terrible turn. How the couple (mostly AB) fights against the system, is the story of the movie.
The travails of an Indian family which is stuck in the legal system is shown thru the role of the angst ridden policeman essayed by Sachin Khedekar who is perhaps underutilized in a brief role (which is itself riddled with some dual characterization).

The movie is entertaining in the humour department mostly due to Big B, Sunju baba and then due to the assorted characters. Sharmila Tagore turns in a fine performance as the retired principal. Anusha Dandekar is almost believable as the English Born Indian (?) bahu. If only Ramu could direct movies like this one, we could have had a nice result. One can’t but help feeling, “If only…” several times in the movie as it does promise quite a bit. AB excels as ever.

If you get free tickets to see the movie, watch it!