Valimai is a film written and directed by H Vinoth, and produced by Boney Kapoor under the banner Bayview Projects LLP. The film has Ajith Kumar and Kartikeya Gummakonda in the lead roles while Huma Qureshi, Sumithra, Achuth Kumar, Selva GM Sundar, Chaitra Reddy, Pearle Maaney and others play crucial supporting roles. The film has music by Yuvan Shankar Raja, and cinematography by Nirav Shah.

Ajith Kumar plays the role of Arjun Kumar IPS, a police officer touted as a people's cop. He is someone who doesn't believe in custodial violence or encounters, and roots for reforming criminals. When a gang of bikers wreak havoc in Chennai, snatching chains and killing people mercilessly, it is upon Arjun's shoulders to save the city and find the root cause for all this.

Whenever we see a cop film in Tamil Cinema, there is a sense of superheroism attached with the lead cop. They will be portrayed as people who have the power to do anything and everything, and that would also fit the commercial cop film genre. The biggest risk that director H Vinoth has taken here is that he has created a socially responsible cop who understands perfectly, the socio-economic reasons behind the crimes. And this risk pays off big time.

Vinoth's clarity and sense of direction stands out big time, and that can be seen in the screenplay. He takes his own time to establish the characters and how the crimes happen before introducing Ajith Kumar. There are very few scenes that are flatly staged.

This is an action movie and there is not a single fight sequence that sticks out. The standards are set high, literally every single one of them packs a punch. The innovativeness stunt master Dhilip Subburayan has brought out needs appreciation. Apart from Ajith, this is what shoulders the entire movie. The emotional scenes might not work for a few but the way they are placed keeps reminding the audience what is at stake for Ajith's character and why he cannot be a superhero.

Ajith's screen presence is definitely a big plus for this film, but a bigger positive is that the film doesn't depend on that alone. Huma Qureshi and Kartikeya Gummakonda shine well, and the latter's physique and menacing looks add more weight to the antagonist character.

Technically too, the film has a lot of exquisite frames early on, and Dhilip Subburayan's stunt choreo is ably supported by Nirav Shah's cinematography. A testament to that would be the construction site fight sequence in the second half where sparks fly, both literally and metaphorically. The songs slow down the screenplay slightly but they aren't too many in number so that doesn't look like a big deal, and the stellar background score by Yuvan Shankar Raja keeps the narrative engaging.

Overall, despite the 3 hour runtime, the film is highly engaging and entertaining. The film promised action, and it delivers the promise without any doubt. The last time fans had a glimpse of their favourite star was at least 900+ days back. And he's back with a bang to turn the theatres into a 'thiruvizha'.