For Mithran (Jayam Ravi), the protagonist of Thani Oruvan, a person's friend shows his character while his adversary shows his capacity. Mithran is a young IPS officer whose only goal in life is to find a worthy rival — a kingpin who is the root cause of all other crimes — and destroy him. He meets his match in Siddharth Abhimanyu (Arvind Swami, making a glorious return), an ambitious scientist-businessman, for whom money is all that matters. This is how Mohan Raja sets up the conflict in Thani Oruvan, an efficient thriller, which packs a mighty punch. Raja's films so far have been competent remake efforts, but nothing prepares us for the smart writing (the director has co-written the film with writer duo Suba, whose experience in pulp novels comes in handy as it did earlier this year in Anegan) and the sleek filmmaking we see here. The plot kicks in once Mithran learns of Siddharth's plan of sabotaging a deal that would result in cheaper medicines for the poor and tries to thwart it without his knowing, but the wily Siddharth manages to succeed. Realizing that he has an opponent who will not stop until he is defeated, Siddharth begins a cat-and-mouse game with the cop. There are some terrific moments — the scene where an assassination plan swings both ways, the scene where Mithran discovers Siddharth has paid his place a visit, the scene where two lives depend on Mithran find…

> A cop vs an evil scientist! The ultimate clash! This is definitely your regular Indian style film, but the script was top notch, that's the vast difference you would find in this. It was a cop-thief clash theme something like the Korean film 'Veteran'. Initially I thought it might be a remake of some Korean film, because it looks like a Korean thriller, but after learning that it was an original, I was amazed. Because, you know, the director has a nick name called remake Raja. He's known for bringing the Telugu blockbuster to the Kollywood. That's not bad and I'm not against remakes, he sure did do a wonderful job with those projects to succeed. The actors were brilliant, especially like everybody saying Aravaind Swamy in a negative role stole the show. The plus point was minimizing the musical track. I mean the narration was not interrupted by unexpected and unnecessary musics and dances like usual Indian films does, except on one occasion I think. The two and half an hour was too long, but that's the average Indian film length and totally worth it. Not easy to predict, but in a few segments you would know what might come in the next scene. Because it might be an awesome film for the Indian audience who are seeing it for the first time, but in the world stage it is just an above average with partial cliché. There were a couple twists, the ending was excellent too, and loo…

There's good news and bad news. The good news is that this is an awesome, award-winning good-cop versus evil-villian action flick. The pacing is rapid, the script is great, the fight scenes are exciting, and the love-story subplot is mature and realistic. In spite of it being primarily a drama, Mohan Raja included the requisite Bollywood-style music interludes for the lovers, complete with seven costume changes in one song. (LOL- We always count the dress changes!) The setting is, of course, the corrupt Indian government. The three primary protagonists of the film do a terrific job in character. The bad news is that the pacing is so tight that subtitles barely stay on the screen long enough to speed-read. The first 20–30 minutes of the film are all backstory, and it's pretty confusing. It's a Tamil movie, and we saw the Hindi-dubbed version, which was a little annoying. Even if we don't understand either language, we understand that the lips don't match the sound. We nearly turned the film off, and we're so glad we didn't. After the back story, it started to make some sense, and this film turned out to be one terrific action film. It's one of those chess-match style, intelligent conflicts that are always great fun to watch.

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