Atlee after a fabulous directorial debut with ‘Raja Rani’ comes back to join hands with Tamil Cinema’s celebrated commercial king Vijay for ‘Theri’ which hits the theatres all over the world today. Vijay’s enormous screen presence meets Atlee’s crafty screenplay work in this masala cop story which has its dose of action, comedy, romance and sentiment. With a whale of a cast, including Samantha, Amy, the little Nainika, Radhika, ‘Naan Kadavul’ Rajendran and Mahendran, Atlee has managed to craft a commercial movie that rides high on commercial aspect through the first half and a predictable revenge drama through the second.

Ever since Vijay was introduced as a cop in 'Pokkiri', the actor has continued to amaze by performing better than his previous roles under the Khakki avatar. After turning from a goon to cop in 'Jilla', in ‘Theri’ he is the no nonsense DCP of Chennai who doesn’t beat around the bush but rather goes by the slightly altered version of the phrase "Action speaks louder along with the words".

Set in the greenly foothills of Kerala the film starts with cute Nainika and Vijay, making fun of each other; they call each other as "Baby" and Atlee’s affectionate gesture is all over the place. Nainika looks like a smaller version of Meena with her chirpy attitude and body language matching Vijay’s equally. After a couple of happy go scenes with Nainika, Vijay and Amy Jackson, Atlee wastes no time in taking us through the flashback.

Somehow Atlee continues being the master of Flashbacks from in ‘Raja Rani’ and same goes for Theri too; the sequences are rich in every aspect a commercial cinema can ask for. Vijay’s entry as "Vijay Kumar IPS" is one of the highlights of the movie; rather than indulging the baddies with a fistfight he takes up the cane, goes around the goons and asks some basic questions from 5th grade, that’s simple yet fair amount of mass served Vijay style. After all the fiasco, the usual things unveil, Vijay loves Samantha, Radhika too loves her to be daughter in law and all that "I hate police" from the in-laws story comes around, but as again Atlee manages to make all this entertaining thanks to some good old fashioned dialogue delivery with some apt screen presence from the lead actors. The growing trend of modern day mom’s being light hearted and funny never seem to die down, Radhika is simply lovable as Vijay’s mother, her expressions top notch!

With a cheerful first half we wait for when Atlee would jump open his game plan and that’s when he takes up "Rape" of an innocent girl as the turning point. Atlee stops over the first half by introducing director Mahendran as the ruthless politician who would stop at nothing but revenge. So a slick and stylish cop with a beautiful love story and a family, a distant villain who breathes fire, anything should happen in a revenge story is what happens next. Atlee scores on all levels through the first, but falls out through the second by too much of the predictability factor. . . The "what happens next" feeling is never there, for what you think just comes out on the screen, fights, love and all those boxes essential for a revenge drama. Atlee has a knack for handling sentiments in a rather unusual way, light hearted humor and right mixture of dialogues. While the first half covering the portions of Nainika, Vijay, Samantha and Radhika have the right dosage of sentiments, he doesn’t do justice quite enough in the second with too many sentimental scenes that rather seem to be inserted for the sake of a tear than necessity. With some predictable scenes, un-lively songs and few sentiment barriers, the screenplay in the second half makes the movie look longer than it actually is. That said Atlee charms with his dialogues he comes up as a very good writer. His pen has made the right impact in every scene especially those stressing the importance of family values, parenting etc are highly commendable. Like 'Raja Rani', dialogues of Atlee are one of the biggest pluses of 'Theri' too.

Enough has been said about Vijay, but still nothing would be complete with a word on the actor. He can act, dance, and tickle your funny bone, all that of course, with Theri he becomes that loveable dad we always wanted. Surprisingly ‘Theri’ doesn’t have that many dance sequences but the actor has tick marked all other departments by a mile. Samantha has the upper hand when compared to Amy and shows promising signs of an actress who simply just doesn’t go behind the hero but plays her part too. Apart from a thumping BGM from GV, the songs don’t linger much in your mind, and a special mention for the art director for giving incredible touches to Chennai traffic and through the songs. Cinematography by George.C.Williams captures Kerala with its aesthetic beauty and Chennai in a likeable tone. Editing by Anthony Ruben could have made the film crisper.