“Virunnu” is a 2024 Indian action drama film written by Dinesh Pallath and directed by Kannan Thamarakkulam. It stars Arjun Sarja and Nikki Galrani, and the film is about mystery, betrayal, and surprise turns.
The film starts with the mysterious death of businessman “John Kalathil”. His wife, “Elizabeth”, dies in a road accident, but before her death, she implores Hemanth to have an encounter with a man named “Balan”. While Hemanth probes deeper, secrets surface, resulting in stunning truths about John's trade transactions, Elizabeth's history, and their daughter “Perly” (Nikki Galrani). With several suspects and underlying agendas, the movie leaves the audience wondering who is responsible for the murders.
Though the intrigue holds the audience's attention, the pace is uneven and the characters lack development. “Arjun Sarja” arrives in the narrative with an energetic action sequence but then is absent for an extended period, which leaves his character to seem out of place. “Hemanth”, an innocent auto driver, in the meantime receives an excessively elaborate background story that does not contribute anything toward the overall narrative. Various supporting characters and subplots: including a romance and a complex marriage crop up but are never resolved, leaving them to seem redundant.
The movie is dependent on turns and twists in the latter half, but the narrative comes across as forced instead of being organically interesting. The camerawork, with its jarring speed-ups and slowdowns, contributes to the forced nature. With a good premise, “Virunnu” is short on emotional depth and does not make the audience care about its characters, instead making them more puzzled than invested.