Kalaga Thalaivan is a film written and directed by Magizh Thirumeni and produced by Udhayanidhi Stalin under the banner Red Giant Movies. The film has Udhayanidhi himself in the lead role alongside Nidhhi Agerwal while Kalaiyarasan, Aarav, RJ Vigneshkanth and others play supporting roles. The film has music by Srikanth Deva and Arrol Corelli.

Thirumaran (Udhayanidhi Stalin) is an employee of a corporate company that manufactures heavy vehicles. Being a company that is already facing a downfall, their secrets have been leaked for the past 4 years by a whistleblower. So the CEO of the organisation hires Arjun (Aarav), an ex commando of the Indian Army, to hunt down the whistleblower. How Thirumaran escapes from Arjun and also saves his close ones forms the plot.

Magizh Thirumeni is known for the way he handles thrillers and the way he infuses romance into such scripts. With Kalaga Thalaivan he tries the same and ends up giving a film with 2 distinct genres that never meet each other. This results in the tonal shifts being jarred.

As much as the thriller portions keep you at the edge of the seat, the romantic portions pull the film down. The chemistry between Udhayanidhi and Nidhhi Agerwal is good but the screenplay could have been better. For instance, in the second half the film almost reaches the climax, but you again have a sequence involving Nidhhi that seems forced for the sake of it.

As far as the performances are concerned, Udhayanidhi sells his character Thirumaran really well. Apart from him, Kalaiyarasan and Aarav also come up with brilliant performances. In addition to this, all 3 look extremely fit, which complements their characters. Nidhhi Agerwal scores well in the emotional scenes.

Technically, like any other Magizh film, this one too stands out with proper distinction between the genres in terms of visual tone. The background music by Srikanth Deva is top notch and the score is memorable. Both the visuals and music elevate a lot of scenes and give us a good experience. The stunt choreography is solid and executed well.

Overall, Kalaga Thalaivan is a good film without a doubt but could have been written better. If the romantic portion was blended more organically and had the film ended a few minutes before it actually did, it could have been even better. But the complaints aren't that big for this cat and mouse thriller. Can definitely give Kalaga Thalaivan a watch.