Run (2002 film)

Plot

Siva (R. Madhavan) is based out of Srirangam and he comes to Chennai to join a college. He stays with his sister (Anu Hasan) and her husband (Raghuvaran). Siva does not like his brother-in-law and never talks to him despite several attempts made by her sister to convince both.

Siva meets Priya (Meera Jasmine) during a bus journey, and it is love at first sight for him. He again meets Priya on a few more occasions and proposes his love but Priya warns him to stop following her despite liking him. Siva understands that Meera’s brother Bhaskar (Atul Kulkarni) is a local goon, and he attacks anyone who follows his sister.

Priya does not want Siva to get beaten by her brother and advises him to stop following her. But Siva is not scared of this and one day, Bhaskar’s hit men spot Siva and Priya together. They try to attack Siva, but instead Siva beats them up, which gives the courage to Priya to love him as he is capable of fighting her brother.

Siva’s brother-in-law gets to know about the love story and offers help which makes them both talk. Siva’s sister feels happy that her husband and brother are in good terms now with each other. One day, Bhaskar comes to attack Siva’s sister’s family but in the meantime, Siva threatens to attack Bhaskar's family, thereby frightening him.

Priya decides to elope with Siva. Bhaskar chases them along with his men. The couple is tracked down, and the goons start attacking Siva. Now Priya interferes and challenges her brother to attack Siva single-handedly with out any of his hit men. He accepts and starts attacking Siva. But Siva retaliates and hits back Bhaskar, who gets severely injured. Bhaskar accepts his defeat and lets Priya go with Siva. The movie ends with Siva and Priya uniting.

Cast

Production

Madhavan signed the film in January 2002 after being impressed with Linguswamy's narration and through the project, made his first appearance in an action-orientated role. Madhavan had wanted to do an action film after being instructed by director Mani Ratnam to move away from romantic drama films and lost eight kilograms to portray Run's lead role. Vidya Balan was originally selected to play the lead role in the film, but was later released from her contract. The makers then signed on Jyothika to portray the lead role. Meera Jasmine was consequently signed on to make her first appearance in Tamil films. Atul Kulkarni was signed on to play an antagonist in the film, and marked a rare move for the actor towards regular villain roles. Raghuvaran, Anu Hasan and Vivek were also signed on to work on the film, with the latter filming a separate comedy track.

The scenes were shot at locations in Chennai, Karaikudi, and Srirangam, among other places, while the songs were shot abroad in Denmark and Switzerland. The team also filmed scenes at the M.G. R. Film City, Chennai, where action sequences were filmed. The film completed production in one schedule, with Madhavan remarking about the well organised structure of the shoot.

Release

The film's release was postponed from July 2002 to September 2002 to finish off post-production works. However the commercial failure of Rajinikanth-starrer Baba (2002) means that the makers pre-poned the film to the earliest release date in September, in order to avoid other competition. The makers of the film chose to release the film on a Thursday instead of a Friday, in order to avoid a box office clash with Prabhu Solomon's Vikram-starrer, King (2002). The film opened in September 2002 to critical acclaim and also performed well at the box office. Nowrunning.com wrote "director Linguswami has given a very enjoyable film with good music by Vidyasagar and brilliant cinematography by Jeeva", adding "Madhavan has proved in this film that he can also do action and that too convincingly". Another critic noted "there is nothing new about the film's story but, Madhavan's new incarnation as an action hero and Linguswamy's racy screenplay has made this a thoroughly enjoyable experience".

The film went on to become amongst the highest grossing Tamil films of the year in 2002, and became actor Madhavan's most profitable film at the time of release. Vivek also won the Best Comedian Award at the Filmfare Awards 2002 for his performance in the film. The film was later dubbed and released in Telugu under the same name during April 2003, with the comedy portions of Vivek re-shot with Sunil. The film's cinematographer, Jeeva, later remade the film in Hindi with Abhishek Bachchan, Bhumika Chawla and Vijay Raaz in the leading roles.

Music

The music was composed by Vidyasagar. The soundtrack won critical acclaim and became Vidyasagar's most successful album at the time of the release.