While remakes are always disappointing since there's the feeling that the director took the easy way out, the silver lining is that we are now seeing remakes of films from different genres rather than just copies of masala films from other languages. Muran, from debutant director Rajan Madhav, is one such film whose subject helps make it easier to overlook the fact that it is a remake. Borrowing its plot from the Hitchcock classic Strangers on a Train, it is a competent thriller that continues to be engaging even when it deviates from the original.

When Nandha(Cheran), an aspiring music director, is stranded on the highway, Arjun(Prasanna), the son of a young business man, gives him a ride. As they get to talking, they share their stories. Nandha tells Arjun about his unhappy married life with his wife Indu and the girl Lavanya(Haripriya) he has developed a liking for while Arjun tells him about his dad's(Jayaprakash) role in destroying his life. Seeing that they both have someone standing in the way of happiness, Arjun proposes a deal - he would kill Nandha's wife while Nandha would kill Arjun's dad.

While Cheran is a grounded individual, Prasanna is a thrill-seeking guy who loves to live on the edge and we learn this within a few minutes of being introduced to them. Their characters have been drawn clearly and the stark contrast in their views and attitude, expressed in some snappy dialogs, makes their meeting and the subsequent car ride interesting.

But we soon realize that while their conversation is a simple sharing of their lives for Cheran, for Prasanna its a way of sizing up Cheran. As he prods and pushes Cheran to see how far he would go, as he does in the mango grove, we get a hint of his diabolical way of thinking. As for Cheran, as his momentary thoughts at home show us, he does get in touch with a dark side that even he didn't know existed. Its just that he doesn't act on it while Prasanna does.

The film's romances are crucial to the plot but don't occupy much screen time. Cheran's unhappy married life feels a bit cliched but his romance with Haripriya has a cute start and is developed in an interesting manner. Suma's character makes Prasanna's pursuit interesting.

The car ride is interesting since good and bad are not clearly demarcated. Considering their situations, there is some moral ambiguity in the thoughts of both Cheran and Prasanna. But after a couple of important revelations, that ambiguity is lost as good and evil become more clearly identifiable. So the film loses the edge that made it interesting until then. As the hero and villain move farther apart and the hero is threatened and chased by the villain, the proceedings starts to feel a bit familiar and repetitive and the film's pace dips.

While many thrillers fall apart at the end, Muran ends with a climax that is low-key but smart. The technique of overlapping Prasanna dancing at the club and Cheran breaking into the hotel works well as a lead-in to a nice surprise. The way an earlier event - which contributed to establishing a character's line of thinking at that time - has been employed to wrap things up cleanly is pretty clever too.

Cheran once again picks a role that fits his serious, no-nonsense demeanor. Between being verbally abused by his wife and cornered by Prasanna, he rarely has any reason to smile and so gets away with minimum emoting. But Prasanna has fun playing the guy with a foolproof plan. He enjoys manipulating Cheran to get what he wants and manages to make us think he is ruthless without looking the part. Haripriya makes an impression among the heroines. Nikitha is convincing as the shrew but has too little screen time while Suma's wooden face and dialog delivery don't help her portrayal of her character. Idhu Varai... is a nice melody and captures the growing affection between Cheran and Haripriya with some nice vignettes. Naan Kanden... also sounds nice though the picturization isn't as interesting.