Valimai Movie Review

H Vinoth’s films in Sathuranga Vettai and Theeran were solid introductions into known-but-unknown worlds that had a lot of detailing in them. Choosing to go the star outing way with Ajith at the centre stage, the director has chosen a different route for his latest film in Valimai.

Valimai introduces Arjun (Ajith) to us as the people’s cop, one man who always finds a way to nab the baddies in the quickest fashion. The film has a lot of things going for it in the first half, which is packed with a balance of brain and brawl – Vinoth brings up the biking gang and their activities in a very convincing manner and then smacks the hero into it by building up the momentum using an intelligent screenplay that has very fine detailing and thump into the crimes that they commit and how the protagonist tracks them down. The film moves at a very good pace in the first half, and culminates at an intriguing interval block that pulls many strings right.

It is only in the second half that the film gives more attention to the family sentiments, which feel force-fed into the screenplay. Vinoth’s approach towards the film turns generic, driving it away from the core content and the end result lacks the detailing which was the attention puller in his first two films. The dialogues too, do not bring a lot of fire into the proceedings. Ultimately, the film banks on the bike action sequences which are superbly choreographed by Dhilip Subbarayan and captured brilliantly by Nirav Shah – it has been a long time since such long and well shot sequences have been visualized to perfection on the big screen.

It is Ajith once again who carries the film on his shoulders, and smacks a lot of ‘power’ into the proceedings. The actor is very confident in the role of the cop who is out to beat everything against him, and delivers a rocking performance once again.

On the other hand, the rest of the cast but for Huma Qureshi and Kartikeya (in parts) are not so impressive and feel that they cannot carry the weight of the film.

Yuvan Shankar Raja’s songs are decent, with the background score too working fine. Ghibran has been thanked in the credits, which is an indication that a part of the background score has been composed by him.

On the whole, Valimai is an action thriller that ticks the basic requirements but does not realize its full potential due to the lack of connect in the familial angle. After a point in the film, it feels like Vinoth has repeated the mistake that happened in Theeran too, where an unwanted emotional angle was drawn in to dilute the core content of the film. Nevertheless, Ajith holds the film high and makes the action sequences super cool to watch, making it a big-screen experience worth buying a ticket for.   Valimai Movie Review by Siddarth Srinivas

Valimai Movie Review Rating: 3/5