Some movies inspire and others are "inspired" - this one definitely falls in the latter category...and inspired by neither Hollywood movies nor Hindi movies nor old Tamil movies, but by just other recent Tamil movies like Anniyan and Sivaji.
The story is simple, no suspense anywhere: Vikram is Kandasamy, a CBI officer raids rich, bad guys; one of them is Ashish Vidyarthi - his daughter Shriya Saran vows revenge by batting her eyelids at Vikram (and apparently wearing very skimpy clothes); in parallel a do-gooder who appears to possess superhero powers helps the poor and needy; no prizes for guessing the do-gooder's identity; cut to Mexico and some drug money; cut to more raids; climax exposes all bad guys, and how unaccounted, tax-free money flowing in and out of country is bad and can help all the poor...all ends well.
The first half is actually somewhat engrossing - the introduction of the rooster-costumed hero helping the poor, some good fights, some great shots of the Madras Boat Club and canoeing on the Adyar River (yes!) and a network of the hero's die-hard loyalists who are just about everywhere. The second half drags - and drags and then drags some more. The Mexico angle is completely unnecessary other than to have Vikram and Shriya cavort in Mexico - there are passing shots of some wonderful locations in Mexico, but ruined by either the cameraman or the editor or both (more on that in a moment). It looks like the Producer and / or director were looking for places that Tamil movies had never been to and picked Mexico and decided to up the ante by shooting not just a song there, but a whole sequence. So we get some passing references to kidnappings in Mexico, a Tamil local who "handles all the money for the top 23 rich guys in Tamil Nadu", song-and-dance and a fight sequence. The problem is that all this does is drag the movie on without adding any value. And, all this waiting produces no pay-off - the climax is so limp and rushed that it is all over before you know it...except it happens about 3hours and 15 minutes after the movie begins.
Vadivelu's comedy track is completely unrelated to the movie, and actually plumbs new lows with some scatological stuff - that was quite inexcusable, Mr Director, for a movies that purports to be cool and new. The villains are caricatures - nothing new there. Yesteryear Telugu superstar Krishna appears as Vikram's boss in the CBI. Prabu is the police officer (thankfully always in plainclothes and not in any tight-fitting uniform) who wants to get to the bottom of this whole super-hero affair - he is good at the little he gets to do. Shriya has nothing much to do and excels at it. Vikram looks cool and fighting fit - he really is the biggest plus point for this movie. But his broad shoulders and bulging biceps (and one scene as a quite beautiful woman) cannot make up for Kandasamy's poorly written characters and sleep-inducing length.
Music by Devi Sri Prasad is good - the songs are hits - some say copies (the only one I could figure out was Meow, Meow which sounded suspiciously like Africa Kaattu Puli from Aalavandhan) .
My biggest complaint about this movie is that I got a head-ache from all the fast cuts and rapid editing - this has been shot like a music video on steroids, except that this one doesn't end in 10 minutes. The technicians seem to have had a free hand in parading their wares here - they seem to be operating on some unwritten rule that no shot should be longer than 5 seconds without a jolt of some kind to the camera. This ruins many of the excellent set-ups - especially in the Mexico sequence - great scenery and wonderful local color, including a bullfight - all ruined by not letting us see anything in any great, or even little, detail. The technicians gave me more to complain about than the weak script, poor character building or the length.
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