Thalaiva - Le leader

A.L.vijay started the narration with stating many great leaders of the world. And in the next 10 minutes,our brain knows the total script of the movie. Next,screenplay is the only area of concern for A.L.vijay. He handles with care in the first half but will be losing his plot in the later half. Vijay-Santhanam combo worked again with a quality leg shake makes the first half worth. Excellent cinematography! A.L.vijay confusion starts here. Slow screenplay make us to feel bore except some instant relief. The difficulty in handling the script(DON) like this is criticism will be higher unless it is perfect. G.V.Prakash work can be half-praised. Editing should be justified since it is a lengthy movie. A good one for vijay since he shows some maturity in acting. Overall, it is an old movie with some new ingredients.

Just now watched film!!!Simply awesome!!!Mind blowing performance.Story may god father based but execution was simply superb.I just entered into theater the movie gonna typical political drama & punch dialogues from vijay.It just kicked me off,not at all a single scene related to political,its complete clean entertainer.Vijay performance is awesome.Sathyaraj chanceless performance.Those who say negative about the film just get away,learn to appreciate don't down a person its really awkward.No over hyped scenes for an introduction,really its very normal and awesome.Second half may lengthy but not at all boredom.Overall its a complete family entertainer.Don't miss it!!!!

Watched the first show of Thalaivaa. From the trailer itself, it was clear that the movie was going to follow the much beaten path of "Nayakan", "Devar Magan", "Sarkar" and the Malayalam hit "Naduvazhigal". Rehashing a familiar storyline is not a crime in itself, all you have to make sure is to present it in a convincing and different way. If rehashes and remakes were considered bad, a movie like "Nayagan" or "Sarkar" would have had no takers. AL Vijay has to a large extent, succeeded in giving a convincing movie to Vijay fans and to Tamil moviegoers in general.

The story, as we all can guess, is about a much-scrutinized, la Robinhood don (played brilliantly by Sathyaraj), going with his life keeping his only son in Australia under the pretext that he is a businessman who is too busy. The son (Vijay, who else!) leads a regal life, taking care of water supply business and doubling up as a dancer. He meets the heroine (Amala Paul, in a cute role) one fine day and love blossoms after a while. One day, circumstances force him to travel to Mumbai to see his father and how he gets involved in all the goings-on there forms the rest of the story.

The movie is leisurely paced, which might not find agreement with all sections of Vijay fans. The love story is a drawn out one, but then there is enough spice in it to keep you involved. The interval is called for with a bang, which gives a clue as to what might happen next. What happens in the second half is a complete deviation from the first one, and can be termed "mass" in the fan language. Even then, it's not happening at breakneck speed which many might expect. However, I thought that the pace was right here (there is no point in sacrificing logic for pace), what was needed was some trimming of some irrelevant portions. The movie achieves what it wants to, in the end.

The technical front is impressive, with Nirav Shah leading from the front to capture some great shots of Mumbai in the second half. The screenplay is tight and we have a mass movie which does not let go of logic, to an extent. The villain disappoints, and what we wanted was not a menacing looking one, but someone who was capable of standing up to the hero. The songs were absolutely a blast while the BGM could have been used to better effect in the second half. AL Vijay could have exercised more control over the proceedings in a more gripping manner, but he has done his best, we feel. It's easy to crib about the minute details, which we feel as aberrations.

Performance wise, Vijay shoulders the movie and gives out a mature performance. Both the halves demanded different get-ups and acting styles from the actor, and he obliges in his own, unique style. Here is an actor who has potential which has yet been under utilized. Sathyaraj performs well, being the seasoned veteran he is and Amala Paul gets a good role, rather than being the regular eye candy in usual movies. His character sketch failed Abhimanyu Singh but everyone else did their roles well.

Overall, the movie is an entertainer in the usual mould of masala movies, but after the movie ends, we feel that there was something different and that it was for good. Much, much better than Singam - 2!!

Another movie taken from the books of Coppola's God Father.A story on how happy-go-lucky guy turns into a leader and so on... as simple as it can be.

Casting: Vijay: Very good acting, real treat for fans to watch him on screen.Throughout the movie Vijay has played a calm and clever sort of persona.First half pays a happy go guy with all good things surrounded by him and on the latter half you can see a wonderful performance from vijay (experience speaks).On the whole vijay has given his 100% for the movie and done his part full heartedly.

Santhanam: As always laughter guaranteed. Sathyaraj,Ponvannan,Manobala & Suresh: Done what was asked to do, clean and crisp. Amala paul: Need to understand that "Mynaa" was successful also because of the story and the director (tat's it). G.V.Prakash:'Vaanganna' enjoying, Good BG score.Job well done. Nirav: Well crafted visuals gels with the movie be it Australia or Mumbai.

A.L.Vijay: Movie is good , Very nice characterization for Vijay including the body language.Has taken efforts towards the making of the film.Still failed on making a story that can make people sit right till the end credits keeps rolling.Nowadays the moviegoers have started to study movies and its technical qualities. Though they do not expect new story every time,the story telling trend has to be new. Being only director to direct Ajith,Vikram and Vijay so far, expectations are higher.

Conclusion: Very fresh and clean performance from Vijay Familiar scenes with repetitive dialogues &Predictive climax. High time for AL Vijay to work on scripts with something new on it.

Reaction: If India loses a match even after Sachin's century. A definite one time watch for fans and family audience.

This venture is different from Vijay's previous films like ''Nanban'', ''Thuppaki'' and ''Velayudham'', but still, it keeps what it has promised. Like Indiaglitz.com stated, Thalaivaa is something between a classy gangster flick or a racy action drama.

People say Thalaivaa has brought Vijay back to the bottom again, but that's wrong. Some people really have a problem with looking at an actor's films (specially Vijay's) in different angles. Okay, as a fan I admit that Vijay slipped a time when films like ''Azhagiya Tamizh Magan'', ''Villu'' and ''Sura'' came out, but still he came out with four blockbusters in a raw, which are ''Kaavalan'', ''Velayudham'', ''Nanban'' and ''Thuppaki'' and what happened to these films? Aren't four blockbusters in a raw good enough for the actor to come back in track. The fact that people really can't accept this, kind of freaks me out at times. So, here's the fact: This is the truth: Thalaivaa is a different genre, and as everybody know Vijay does an excellent job in his usual genres which are action and comedy. Thalaivaa is a decent gangster drama which tells the story about the change of a common man's life. Simple as that. ''How?'' is the question. There's no doubt that the film was completed beautifully.

The first official combination between Vijay and G.V. Prakash Kumar was awesome. The soundtrack is energetic and the choreography was mind-blowing. The costumes that are used in this film were also pretty good, specially those that are used in Sathyaraj sir's character and those that are used in Vijay's character in the second half of the film. Santhanam's sense of humor hasn't sunk a percent at all and Amala Paul has shown another side of her acting skills. Abhimanyu Singh was also faithful to his role as Bhima. The film also has another benefit: Unexpected, but needed twists.

As a Vijay fan, I believe Thalaivaa will be a film all Vijay fans will remember. Perfect title for both the story and the actor and you see the character is born to win. It might not be as great as ''Nanban'' or ''Thuppakki'', but still it's satisfying!

''Once we pick up the knife, it will either protect or destroy. But one thing we know for sure is that it's impossible to drop it down.'' - Sathiyaraj