Second Show 2012

On a rain-soaked night, the film unfolds as the flashback of Harilal, an ex-convict, who recounts his turbulent past to a stranger at a bus stop. Harilal, nicknamed Lalu, is a poor young man who works as a driver for a local sand mafia. His fate shifts when he befriends Kurudi, Dulquer Salmaan, a bold yet volatile ally who drags him into a street-level world of risk and quick decisions. Together they draw the attention of a cash-strapped underworld, and Kurudi’s reckless courage pulls Lalu into a dangerous scheme that leaves the sand smugglers shorthanded, forcing them to improvise or lose their livelihoods.

Seeking a way out, Lalu and Kurudi circle in with Chaver Vavachan, Baburaj, a shrewd financier who makes his living by retrieving vehicles from borrowers who fail to repay loans. Vavachan, the younger brother of a notorious former goon named Chaver Antony, is driven by a long-standing thirst for vengeance after Antony’s death in a cracker accident. The film lays out the long fuse of this vendetta: Vavachan waits twenty-five years, tracks down the lad who killed Antony in a hospital, and attempts to finish the job by removing the oxygen that keeps him alive. In the hospital, a nurse intervenes, but she is shoved aside as Vavachan’s revenge takes shape. A tense moment reveals the nurse to be Geethanjali alias Geethu, the very nurse whom Lalu had slapped earlier that day; a stark mark — three red lines on her cheek — hints at the violence behind their fates.

Vavachan’s path of retribution ends in tragedy when he triggers a blast that also takes down one of Vishnu Budhan’s influential henchmen. Vishnu Budhan, Sudesh Berry, a powerful smuggler, retaliates by killing Vavachan, and his henchmen turn their sights on Lalu’s group. Lalu and his friends scramble to safety, but the danger follows them. Fearing for his mother’s safety, Lalu moves her to his uncle Janardhan’s house, where the old family ties and the pressures of crime begin to intertwine. Janardanan, Kunchan, helps introduce Lalu to Geethu again, this time as a potential confidante and future ally. Geethu, wary of Lalu’s world, is urged to keep quiet about the hospital incident to protect his mother.

Soon Lalu and Kurudi reach a precarious crossroads, where Vishnu Budhan’s henchmen close in. Lalu fights back with surprising grit, and Vishnu Budhan takes him into his own fold, testing his loyalty and his appetite for power. The dynamic within Vishnu Budhan’s crew is fractured when Vikadan, one of Lalu’s supposed friends, betrays him — Vikadan, Aneesh Gopal — leaving Lalu battered and isolated. Lalu’s circle shrinks further as his comrades arrange a precarious escape, and the group seeks refuge at Sethu’s tea shop, run by Murali Krishnan.

Meanwhile Kurudi, now working as a taxi driver, reappears with a different swagger. He claims to have faced Bhuddhan’s son and to own everything that matters, including his phone. The brothers’ bond strains as Lalu confronts the moral costs of his life in crime, and Geethu — the nurse he once slapped and whose loyalty is now central to his world — starts to see the man behind the mask. Lalu’s proposal to Geethu is met with initial resistance, but his uncle’s plan to see Geethu married to Lalu creates a complicated triangle of affection, duty, and survival. Geethu ultimately accepts, and Lalu begins to carve a new, darker destiny for himself as a smuggler who eclipses Vishnu Budhan.

The film’s momentum crescendos as Vishnu Budhan answers with brutal force: he kills Kurudi, removing one of Lalu’s closest allies, a blow that pushes Lalu to exact a ruthless revenge by killing Vishnu Budhan himself and seizing control of his operation. The police angle arrives when Sachi, Vijayakumar Prabhakaran, shows up to arrange a meeting with the new Commissioner of Police. Lalu discovers that Sachi is the very commissioner, a twist that seals his fate in the law’s tightening grip. The inevitable fallout follows: Lalu is jailed, stripped of nearly everything he has, saved only by the enduring faith of his mother; Geethu marries someone else, and his business collapses under the weight of past choices.

Back in the present, Lalu concludes his narration, thinking he has returned home for one last quiet night. But a suspicious car lurks nearby, and a shooter closes in. The man reveals himself to be sent by Vishnu Budhan’s son, and he fires. The attack confirms that Lalu’s chapter is far from closed. As he lies wounded but not entirely defeated, his hand moves ever so slightly, a promise that the story of Lalu — Harilal’s memory and Kurudi’s shadow — will continue to unfold.