Valimai

VALIMAI is the story of an honest cop fighting a bike gang. Chennai has become the hub for drugs, especially the one that comes from Colombia. A bike gang has suddenly cropped up in the Tamil Nadu city. It steals the drugs from Colombia whenever it gets docked in Chennai. Their modus operandi, however, is unique. When they steal the drugs, they also commit murders and indulge in chain snatching incidents.

Valimai has an interesting premise for a slick action thriller. Like director H Vinoth’s Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru, Valimai talks about the system and how it doesn’t help common people. However, Valimai isn’t as effective as Theeran. Courtesy: Valimai’s predictable screenplay. The cat-and-mouse game between Ajith and Kartikeya should ideally excite you and make you look forward to the proceedings. But, it only works in parts for Valimai.

Every character in Valimai, including Huma and both the brothers feel like add-ons with no depth.

Vinoth’s idea of creating an urban legend goes awry when the film fails to distinguish Ajith’s offscreen persona from Ajith’s character in Valimai. The reference to Ajith’s passion for motorbikes is used as bait one too many times. And when the fans bite it, they are whipped into a frenzy. There is so much action on the screen but very little happens in every scene. The chase sequences play out on seemingly endless roads. Arjun keeps riding various types of bikes on streets, on highways, off-roads. And he even uses his bike to jump from one high-rise into another. The scene seems indebted to the Etihad Towers jump sequence in Furious 7. And all these action sequences don’t add up to anything bigger than the simple excitement of fans watching their favourite star pop a wheelie.