Rudhran

Rudhran is an IT professional in Chennai living happily with his father Devaraj, a transport agency owner, and mother Indhrani. He falls in love with Ananya, a lab technician, where the two get married and bear a daughter Anya. However, the family's happiness is short lived as Devaraj gets cheated by his friend Das by borrowing money from a moneylender, which leads to his death, and Rudhran heads to London to settle the financial issues. One day, Rudhran finds about his mother's death and Ananya's disappearance, where he heads back to Chennai. He feared overly because of Ananya was pregnant for 8 months, he seeks the help to Police, with the help of the Cop Rudhran finds some shocking truths. After investigating, Rudhran captures Varadha, whom he met at Indira's funeral and is also the leader of a gang behind him.

Rudhran learns about Varadha's involvement with his friend Bhoominathan, a gangster who runs a syndicate network; targeting working people abroad in exchange for their property and money. Bhoomi and Varadha were actually responsible for Indira's death. Ananya was also killed on the day of Indira's death when she reached home and tried to save her. With a help of a cop, Rudhran sets on a violent crusade and targets Bhoomi's men where he takes them down, and later has a confrontation with Bhoomi. Rudhran finally finishes Bhoomi, thus avenging his families' death. Later, Rudhran runs a charitable trust under his mother's name and also continues his vigilante activities.

This film is the second collaboration between Raghava Lawrence and R. Sarathkumar after their first venture Kanchana.[4] This film is the directorial debut for the producer S. Kathiresan. The first look poster for the film was released on 23 June 2022.[5][6] A promotional glimpse of the film was released on 29 October 2022.[7] Shooting of the film was wrap-up on 5 March 2022.[8][9] The trailer for the film was released on 5 April 2023.[10]

The songs of the film were composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, while the remix version of the song "Paadatha Pattellam"[11][12][13] from Veera Thirumagan was recreated by Dharan Kumar, who also collaborated with singers Sathyaprakash and Nithyashree Venkataramanan previously for Carvaan Lounge Tamil segment.[14] The song "Jorthaale" which was composed by OfRo and featuring lyrics from singer Asal Kolaar back in 2021, was re-used for this film and it was released to digital streaming platforms as fourth single of the film's album. Sam C. S. composed the background score for the film.

The film was earlier schedule to release on 23 December 2022, but was postponed due to a delay in the VFX works.[15][16] The film was released on 14 April 2023, coinciding with Puthandu.[17]

Gopinath Rajendran of The Hindu wrote "Rudhran is an excruciating watch that brings nothing new to the table and tries to capitalise on the tropes that had worked for ages, only to fail because of the same reason."[19] Logesh Balachandran of The Times of India gave 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "While the film may somewhat satisfy fans of this genre, given that it has elements of romance, revenge, comedy, and emotion, those seeking something novel will be left disappointed."[20] Thinkal Menon of OTTplay gave 2 out of 5 stars and wrote "Lawrence's acts in Rudhran are no different from what he portrays in the popular Kanchana franchise. With almost zero novelty in the screenplay and dull character sketches, one finds it difficult to sit through the whole movie. A message that appears in the end is relevant, but forced and hence, makes little impact."[21]

123Telugu gave 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Raghava Lawrence starrer Rudhra is just a mediocre action drama that works in parts. Lawrence’s performance, emotions, and the climax portion are good in the film. The movie may not appeal to all sections of audiences, but given its nature, it will end up just an okay watch for the mass audience this weekend."[22] Janani. K of India Today gave a negative review of 1 out of 5 stars and wrote "The story deals with a conflict that has the potential to be developed into a full-fledged crime story. But, the filmmaker decided to do away with that and delve into melodrama instead. The final result is a film that hardly has anything new and interesting to offer."[23]

Bharathy Singaravel critic of The News Minute gave 1 stars out of 5 and wrote that "We’ll probably never get an answer to that, but to the question of whether you should watch Rudhran over this long weekend, I would say absolutely not."[24] Navein Darshan critic of Cinema Express gave 1.5 stars out of 5 and stated that "How I wish the rest of the film too didn't take itself so seriously."[25] Ananda Vikatan noted it as a "time pass film".[26] Kalyani Pandiyan. S of Hindustan Times wrote "The film has all the features of a commercial film. Everything has worked out well except the action."[27] ABP News gave 3 stars out of 5 and wrote mixture of reviews.[28] Shameena Parveen of Samayam gave 2 stars out of 5 and criticized its length.[29]

• Rudhran at IMDb