Rating: 2.75/5 (Ok)

After a record breaking blockbuster in Ghilli, Vijay and Dharani have teamed up once again for a film titled Kuruvi. Released in 2008, how does this masala fare compare to their earlier collaboration? If I had to be honest, it's not that great. Read on to find out why

Story: There is a diamond smuggling ring going on in Kadapa, ANdhra Pradesh led by Kocha (Suman) and Konda Reddy (Ashish Vidyarthi) and they kidnap Singamuthu (Manivannan) as a laborer to work there for him. He never returns to his family and they think he is dead. Vetrivel (Vijay) is a race car driver and Singamuthu's son. He tries to find whereabouts of his father and he goes to Malayasia along with friend (Vivek) as a Courier (Kuruvi) to find out what's going on. In the process, Vetrivel discovers a conspiracy and uses Kocha's sister Devi (Trisha) as bait to rescue his father and take the down the villains in the end.

Performances: Kuruvi is Vijay's one man show. He dances like a dream, fights with courage, mouths endless punch dialogues, and swoons the herione like always does in every film. He looks pretty lean compared to his earlier films and he carries the movie literally the whole time. It's Ilayathapathy all the way.

Trisha is alright as Devi.

Suman is pretty good as Kocha and Ashish Vidyarthi is over the top as Konda Reddy and speaks Telugu half the time.

Manivannan is brief and Vivek does his best to entertain and make you laugh. Nivetha Thomas appears as Vijay's sister and Pawan as Soori is adequate and gets the living daylights kicked out of him by Vijay.

Technicalities: Music and BGM by Vidyasagar is good. The choreography in Dandaana Darna and Palanadhu is excellent. Cinematography by S. Gopinath adds value to film and makes it look rich. Dialogues by Babu SIvan are good for the most part. Editing by VT Vijayan is ok. The film could have been a lot better. Production Values by Udhyanidhi Stalin on Red Giants Movies banner are grand. Fights by Rokcy Rajesh are in typical Tamil flavor and full of wire-work but the train jump is ridiculous. No way any man, let alone Vijay could jump that far and land on a train from such a height. Technically the film is sound, but the problem lies within the direction department.

Analysis: Dharani is at full blame here for making a below average product at best. He had all the resources in place but besides extracting a superb performance from Vijay and having good fight sequences, Kuruvi fails to fly towards it's target zone. The story is not new and pretty routine and the villains don't help either.

Kuruvi starts off by establishing where Singamuthu is and proceeds like every other masala movie with Vijay's introduction and then intro song. Then the film comes into it's senses during the Malaysia episode but forced comedy, the romantic track, and dull scenes spoil the flow. The interval is superb yet unrealistic and sets it up for a nice 2nd half.

The film then becomes predictable with the son knowing where his father is and like in every other Indian movie, defeats all the villain with less than a scratch on his body and all ends happy. The 2nd half is loaded with fights and action episodes and you never feel bored and it's a feast for action film lovers.

But I don't know if the makers realized but the last two fights are directly copied from SS Rajamouli's Chatrapathi and makes you wonder why Rajamouli didn't file for copyright infringement.

Overall, Kuruvi makes for an ok watch and works in bits and parts. Vijay's performance and an action packed 2nd half works for the movie but poorly written villains and a routine story are the drawbacks.

If you're a Vijay fan, watch it and if not, then watch it if you can actually spare the time to.