IRU MUGAN

Iru Mugan (English: Two-faced) is a 2016 Indian Tamil-language science fiction action film written and directed by Anand Shankar. The film stars Vikram in dual roles, Nayantara and Nithya Menen in the lead roles, while Nassar, Thambi Ramaiah, Karunkaran and Riythvika appear in supporting roles. Having gone through several changes in pre-production of cast and producers, the film began shooting in December 2015.The film was simultaneously dubbed into Telugu as Inkokkadu and was released worldwide on 8 September 2016. In 2017, it was dubbed into Hindi as International Rowdy.

An elderly Malaysian man suddenly goes ballistic and kills several Indian officers in a span of five minutes at the Indian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, before collapsing. A tattoo of a love symbol is present at the back of his neck, leading RAW officials to conclude that it is the handiwork of a criminal scientist named Love, whose identity and whereabouts are unknown to anyone except Akhilan Vinod (Vikram), a suspended RAW agent whose wife Meera George (Nayantara), a leading computer analyst at RAW, was killed by Love four years ago. RAW chief Malik (Nassar) tracks down Akhilan and convinces him to join the investigation. On viewing the video footage of the attack, Akhilan comes to the conclusion that the elderly Malaysian man had taken a mysterious performance-enhancing drug which allowed him to attack the Indian officials and decides to investigate the matter further in Malaysia. Since Akhilan is under suspension, Malik assigns him as a deputy to a junior RAW agent Aayushi (Nithya Menen), who is officially assigned to handle the case, and the two of them leave for Kuala Lumpur.

In Kuala Lumpur, Akhilan and Aayushi learn that the mysterious drug is inhaled using an asthma inhaler. Further investigations lead them to Peter (Karunakaran), a scientist who is on Love's payroll. Peter turns approver and tells them about the drug, which is called "Speed". The drug causes a person who inhales it to have extraordinary strength for five minutes before falling unconscious, and if the person inhales the drug again within a few hours, he/she will suffer a massive heart attack. Peter also reveals that a shipment of Speed inhalers is to be dispatched to Love within the next fifteen minutes. Akhilan and Aayushi pursue the lorry carrying the inhalers. But the lorry drivers inhale Speed and subdue the duo, who are then taken to Love's hideout. As Akhilan moves to arrest Love (Vikram), who turns out to be a transgender, he is knocked out by none other than Meera, who is shockingly still alive, has been working for Love as a computer hacker, and now goes by the name of Rosy. It is then revealed that Meera suffers from retrograde amnesiaafter being shot in the head four years ago and that Love took advantage of her situation to employ her as a computer hacker. She has no mind of her own, following whatever Love says. However, when Love orders her to kill Akhilan and Aayushi, she instead points the gun at Love, and calls the police, who arrest Love. Meera then reveals that she had been forced to take Speed by Love to work faster, but the drug caused her old memories, including those with Akhilan, to return, and she soon regained her full memory after continuous use of the drug.

Love manages to obtain a Speed inhaler while in custody and inhales it, helping her to escape and destroy the entire police station, killing everyone present including Aayushi. Akhilan finds out that Love had made a satellite call to Chang, the Transport Minister of Malaysia who had allowed Love to send shipments of Speed inhalers to India to perpetrate terror attacks there in return for money. He rushes to the hospital where Chang is admitted and interrogates him. During the interrogation, Love sneaks into the hospital and hiding in the AC vent, sprays a neurotoxic gas in Chang's room, causing Akhilan and Chang to get paralysed. She then kills Chang and puts the knife on Akhilan's hand, framing him as Chang's assassin. Now a wanted criminal, Akhilan, despite being paralysed, somehow manages to escape from the hospital and the Malaysian police.

Akhilan and Meera then decide to finish off Love once and for all using Love's kill switch activation device which had been restored and hidden by Aayushi before she was killed. However, as the device can only be opened with Love's fingerprint, they plan on obtaining her fingerprint. They sneak into an illegal airfield owned by Chang, where Love is planning to leave for India with the shipments of Speed inhalers. Akhilan inhales Speed and fights Love, who has also inhaled Speed, and manages to get her fingerprint before collapsing after the drug's effect wears off. On regaining consciousness, he finds out that Love has already left for India. He then uses the fingerprints to open the kill switch activation device, deactivates Meera's kill switch and kills all of Love's henchmen, including those piloting the plane. The plane crashes into a remote jungle, killing Love, destroying the Speed shipments and thus averting a major terrorist attack.

One month later, Akhilan and Meera are seen enjoying a holiday cruise sponsored by the Government of Malaysia as a reward for killing Love. After discussing their future plans, Akhilan reveals he has kept a Speed inhaler and inhales it.

With Arima Nambi, Anand Shankar showed us that he has a flair for Hollywood-ish action thrillers. Iru Mugan, too, feels like something that Hollywood might have come up with. There is a high-concept involving a super drug that increases one’s adrenaline and turns ordinary men into supermen for five minutes. The villain is an over-the-top figure who seems to indulge in evil acts not out of any agenda, but more because he relishes the chaos he can create in the world. There is also a clever twist involving the heroine that is actually borrowed from Fast & Furious 6. The characters look chic and the visuals have a sheen that we don’t usually see in our films here.
 

But, unlike the first half of Arima Nambi, where Anand Shankar hardly deviated from the plot, here, perhaps because he is working with a star, he settles for compromises — forced comedy by Thambi Ramaiah, who appears as a cop in Malaysia, that sits uneasily with the seriousness of the hero’s mission (it is a stark contrast to what the director achieved with MS Bhaskar in Arima Nambi); a melodramatic character, played by Riythvika, who seems to have dropped in from another film (perhaps Kabali, given that she plays a similar character here); the ease with which Akilan and Ayushi trace the whereabouts of Love, who is built up to be a cunning person; clumsy exposition that is provided through a character (Karunakaran) who seems to exist just for this purpose (the guy works for the villain, but is only too eager to tell everything he knows of his plans to the hero); the several logic leaps (for example, the almost magical recovery by the hero in the climax after taking the super drug, which we are told leaves a person drained for hours after the five-minute mark).

And yet, the film works… to an extent. And that is mainly because the director gives an antagonist who is more than an equal to the hero. His Love seemed to be more of an indulgence in the promos, especially because of Vikram’s predilection towards gimmicky roles, but the character works in the film, and keeps us in thrall. And the actor nails both the mannerisms and the modulation of this character. The film feels alive whenever this character is on screen, and that is why the second half — despite the implausible scenes — comes across as more engaging than the initial portions.

This is another South Indian Film that I love. For me, the story was unique and honestly, I love the acting of Vikram. I love his second role that is villain one. He has portrayed girlish acting which I loved it. The way he portrayed the role is outstanding. He is such a versatile actor in South Indian Film. My eyes were stuck on him. Not only Vikram acting, Nayantara is such a beautiful actress. She has aloes done a brilliant acting.