‘Vidaamuyarchi’ Movie Review: Ajith Kumar Struggles To Keep This Thriller From Running Out of Gas (LatestLY Exclusive)

Vidaamuyarchi Movie Review: Magizh Thirumeni's Vidaamuyarchi is a loose remake of Breakdown, a passable 90s thriller starring Kurt Russell (which also had a Hindi remake, Prithvi, starring Suniel Shetty). While it features Ajith Kumar in the lead, Vidaamuyarchi isn’t your typical Ajith mass entertainer. The director has aimed for a Hollywood-style thriller that just happens to have Ajith in the lead, though Anirudh’s score occasionally tries a bit too hard to amp up the mass appeal. It’s commendable that Ajith has avoided unnecessary mass elements in a film that doesn’t really need them. That said, after a while, I found myself wishing he’d brought a bit more swag to the table, given how lacklustre Vidaamuyarchi ultimately feels. ‘Vidaamuyarchi’ Movie Review: Critics Hail Ajith Kumar’s Strong Performance in Magizh Thirumeni’s Tamil Actioner.

The story follows Arjun (Ajith Kumar) and Kayal (Trisha Krishnan), a couple living in Azerbaijan who have been married for 12 years but are now on the verge of separation. As Kayal packs her things to move back to her parents’ house in another city, the kind-hearted Arjun offers to drive her there—a nine-hour journey. Along the way, they’re harassed by a Tamilian goon, Michael (Aarav), and his gang. During a stop for fuel, Kayal befriends a Tamilian couple, Deepika (Regena Cassandra) and Rakshith (Arjun Sarja), who claim to run a trucking business.

Watch the Trailer of 'Vidaamuyarchi':

When Arjun’s car mysteriously breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no mobile reception, Kayal flags down the couple’s truck, and they agree to drop her at a nearby café where she can call for help. After Kayal leaves, Arjun realises someone tampered with the car. When he reaches the café, Kayal is nowhere to be found. What happens to her, who the trucker couple really are, and how Arjun rescues his estranged wife forms the rest of the plot.

'Vidaamuyarchi' Movie Review - Takes Time to Get Going

As I mentioned earlier, Vidaamuyarchi isn’t a typical Ajith film, so don’t expect a mass hero entry scene or a kuthu song with beats catchy enough to make fans dance in the aisles. In fact, the film starts awkwardly, showing the couple on their drive before abruptly jumping into a flashback to their wedding 12 years earlier. The flashback keeps cutting back and forth jumping various timelines, establishing their love story and then showing where it went wrong. While this was likely intended as a stylised way to depict the breakdown of their marriage, the montage ends up killing the tempo in the first act itself. Given that there were opportunities to reveal key plot points - like an affair - later in the film, this sequence feels unnecessary, unless the goal was simply to showcase Ajith in various looks (while Trisha barely seems to age).

After this sluggish start and Ajith’s understated performance, I kept waiting for Vidaamuyarchi to pick up the pace. Things finally get going with the gas station sequence, where Deepika and Rakshith are introduced, and Arjun nearly clashes with Michael. Once Kayal goes missing, the film becomes more engaging as both Arjun and the audience are thrown into an intriguing mystery.

The Azerbaijani locales provide the perfect backdrop for the film’s wilderness and desolate setting, though I doubt it’ll do much for the country’s tourism. Arjun’s re-encounter with Rakshith on the highway and the latter’s inexplicable behaviour add another layer of intrigue, and the low-key suspense here works in the film’s favour. By the interval, Arjun finds himself facing a threat he can’t comprehend and a revelation that leaves him - and the audience - utterly confused.

'Vidaamuyarchi' Movie Review - A Convoluted and Patchy Second Half

Speaking of that twist, you can’t blame Arjun for not understanding it, because it’s clearly designed to baffle the audience. The second half of Vidaamuyarchi tries to confound viewers with increasingly silly twists about the characters’ motivations, even resorting to manipulative flashback edits when it’s obvious they’re misleading. The film piles on so many twists and turns, turning random characters into villains, that it becomes nonsensical after a point.

In one of the earlier flashbacks, Kayal tells Arjun he’s one of the smartest people she knows. I hope that was just flattery because I was waiting for him to show some ingenuity in rescuing his wife. Instead, he survives thanks to the villains’ over-the-top incompetence (why not just kill him when they have the chance?), sheer dumb luck, or because the screenplay demands it. Come on, you should suspect something when you keep bumping into quite a few Tamilians on the trot in an alien country.

I kept wishing unlike Arjun, the script had some of the cleverness it needed to function as a smart thriller. Sadly, nearly every sequence in the second half feels cold and dull, leaving me longing for Ajith to inject some of his signature mass appeal to liven things up. Alas, it never happens.

There are a few action scenes scattered throughout, but none feel particularly inspired. I understand the desire to keep the superstar grounded and avoid leaning too heavily on his swag, but that doesn’t mean his action sequences have to be so ordinary. For instance, there’s a moving car fight scene with so much potential, but the execution falls flat. It reminded me of a similar sequence in the Malayalam film Thallumaala, which had much lower stakes but was far better executed. Even the final fight between Ajith and Arjun lacks the flair to make it memorable. As for whether Arjun finds his wife, it’s purely down to luck—nothing to do with his brains.

'Vidaamuyarchi' Movie Review - The Performances

Performance-wise, Ajith carries the film decently, though there are moments where he seems disengaged. It’s too understated a performance to leave a memorable impact.

Trisha is okay in a role that doesn’t give her much to work with. Regina Cassandra channels a Harley Quinn vibe opposite Arjun Sarja’s stoic Joker, though the mental disorder subplot given to their characters feels problematic. Their arc would have worked just as well—if not better—without that added layer. Why can’t they just be antagonists who enjoy being evil because they’re evil? Arav, meanwhile, becomes increasingly annoying with his over-the-top snarls directed at the hero.

As for Anirudh, his background score works better than the songs, particularly when he isn’t forcing mass anthems into the mix. Those moments feel oddly out of sync with the film’s tone.

'Vidaamuyarchi' Movie Review - Final Thoughts

Ultimately, despite its polished attempt to reinvent the 'Ajith' formula, Vidaamuyarchi sputters and stalls like Arjun’s tampered car, leaving us stranded in a desert of sluggish pacing, convoluted twists, and a glaring lack of genuine thrills. Even Ajith, with all his star power, can’t quite jump-start this ride.

(The opinions expressed in the above article are of the author and do not reflect the stand or position of LatestLY.)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 06, 2025 03:54 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).