With the right material, Vijay can elevate even an ordinary scene with his amazing screen presence. And he can effortlessly play to the gallery. It is these aspects that Atlee repeatedly calls upon from the actor in Theri, a cop story that is entertaining despite being predictable. And the actor, too, responds in style — he appears in different looks, bashes up the goons, swoons over the heroine, plays along with kids, lectures on raising a child, using a helmet and quitting smoking, and even gamely turns into a dwarf for a brief moment!
As he did with Raja Rani, Atlee borrows tropes from earlier films(the elderly villain from Chatriyan, the metal rod being used as a murder weapon from Ghajini, the gigantic henchman who has to be vanquished before the hero can lay his hands on the villain from various masala movies of the 80s and 90s, the mother as the best friend from the post 2000 movies, the cop who quits the force for his offspring from Yennai Arindhaal) and with help from his cinematographer George C Williams, presents them in a riot of colours that almost makes us believe that we are seeing something new. But this is a formulaic film and can be best described only with another cliche — old wine in a fancy, extra-large bottle.
The film begins with scenes between Joseph Kuruvilla(Vijay) and his little daughter Nivi(Nainika), who behaves in the way most movie kids behave — talk like an adult, behave like a brat and still have us go’Oh so cute!’ Her teacher Annie(Amy Jackson, as a Malayali, no less!) becomes close to the two, but following an incident, realises that Joseph is hiding something. And like her, we, too, are told of his past, when he was the intrepid deputy commissioner Vijay Kumar. By investigating a rape and murder case, Vijay earns the enmity of minister Vanamamalai(Mahendran, making a solid debut). And the minister kills Vijay’s mother(a jovial Radikaa) and wife, Mithra(Samantha), and leaves the cop for dead. And when Joseph realises that Vanamamalai knows his secret identity, he decides to end their enmity once and for all.