Bigil Movie Summary:

Rayappan (Vijay) is a gangster in North Madras who has to take the knife in hand to protect his people. His son, Michael aka Bigil is a state-level footballer. Rayappan does not want his son to be him and hence he asks him to excel in his field.

However, due to unforeseen circumstances, Michael ends up just as his dad Rayappan leaving away his career in football. Later, the situation forces him to take up football again and coach the Tamil Nadu Women's football team.

Bigil Movie Performances:

Vijay literally stole the show in two roles. For a man to be in his 40s, he looks extremely young. In the role of Rayappan, he aced the body language of an old man which explains his experience.

Nayanthara is more of a second fiddle in this commercial venture. She is eye-candy and her role does not add any substance to the film. She gets her expressions right but that doesn't make any difference to the story.

Jackie Shroff as the villain has a brief screen presence and he is just him on the screen and off the screen as well. Director Atlee could have written a more solid role for the terrific actor.

Kathir, Indhuja Ravichandran, Amritha Aiyer, Reba Monica John, Varsha Bollamma and Yogi Babu are supporting characters and have done their roles with much finesse.

Bigil Movie Positives:

Director Atlee has taken a routine story and has packaged it well with commercial elements. It is very clever of him to include action, drama, revenge, and sports all in one film.

Vijay is the soul of Bigil and one cannot expect a Bigil without him. His performance elevates every single scene and as an actor, this film has a huge scope for him to explore.

Cinematography by GK Vishnu is par excellence. The angles, lighting and the colours used in Bigil look majestic on screen. Though we get a deja vu feeling during the Verithanam song, it still looks beautiful.

AR Rahman's songs have worked wonders in the film, especially Singapenney and Mathare. Both songs got placed well and they evoke the right sense of emotion as it should.

Bigil Movie Negatives:

The film's runtime of 2 hours and 58 minutes is a huge setback for Bigil. There are a lot of sub-plots and they're not too deep for the audience to care and empathize with the characters.

There are a lot of sequences that got added just to please the audience. A little trimming would make Bigil a much more effective film. For example, a celebration sequence got added just for the sake of it.

Director Atlee could have given more details to the characterizations of the villains. Especially when they had powerful actors like Daniel Balaji and Jackie Shroff, they have underutilized them.

Bigil Movie Verdict:

Bigil, directed by Atlee, is a proper commercial film that will satisfy the thirst of Vijay's ardent fans. It's Vijay's show from the word go and his performance is very enjoyable. The film is quite predictable and the lengthy runtime are the drawbacks of this commercial potboiler.