The brutal skirmishes between the police and the separatist group are shown without censorship, emphasizing the violence of the conflict.
Set in the late 1980s against the backdrop of the fictionalized Perumal Malai region, Viduthalai Part 1 follows Kumaresan (played brilliantly by Soori), a simple, honest, and idealistic young man who joins the police force as a jeep driver. He is stationed in a remote, heavily militarized hill village where the police are locked in a brutal conflict with the "People’s Army" ( Makkal Padai ), a rebel group led by the elusive and revered revolutionary Perumal "Vaathiyar" (Vijay Sethupathi).