Gurudeva badly needs a revamp of its screenplay And as long as they are rewriting it, they should consider hiring someone who actually knows how to write one! Hidden in the movie is a fairly different story that throws up something new and interesting in the familiar girl-loves-rowdy story. But the story is buried under a screenplay filled with poor characterization, awful comedy and predictable situations.

Guru(Jai Akash) is a rowdy-for-hire with a heart of gold(how do we know this? He helps a girl marry the slime who duped her and then refuses the money offered by her father). Deva(Pranathi), who works at the same office as the slime, falls for Guru's goodheartedness. But her legal guardian(Vijayakumar) wants her to marry his son so that he can gain control of her wealth. Guru sets out to save her from the clutches of the guardian and ends up going to jail for 3 years.

Pranathi falling for Jai Akash is profoundly unbelievable. Poor boy-rich girl romances are fine but her lifestyle and behavior and his actions and even way of taking are so far apart that we need to take it with not just a pinch but a whole bowlful of salt. But midway through the movie, there is a nice surprise that completely validates the proceedings in the first half. The reasoning behind the character's decision is not completely acceptable but the decision itself was surprising enough to make me forgive the movie for its flaws upto that point.

But the movie fails to capitalise on the twist. It had the chance to make Jai Akash engage in some really interesting and crowd-pleasing actions but lets the chance slip completely. He utters some lines with enough bravado but fails to follow up on them. Instead of some spirited scenes we get cliched scenes like him getting drunk and creating a commotion in front of Pranathi's house. The scene where one of the characters has a change of heart is nicely done though.

An unnecessary part of the film illustrates the director's inexperience behind the camera. There are two ingredients for good suspense. One, it should not be generated artificially. And two, there should be something surprising when the suspense is broken. Here Vijayakumar's conversations with Pranathi are silenced artificially in order to generate suspense. Worse, there is nothing remotely surprising when the content of their conversations are revealed. As we've seen in several movies, Vijayakumar is simply her greedy legal guardian.

Jai Akash doesn't suit the role of the rowdy and the fact that he is not shown indulging in any real 'rowdy' acts hurts him further. Pranathi, who played Sarathkumar's talkative wife in Gambeeram, is quieter here but doesn't impress as much. Nasser raises a couple of laughs initially but is more impressive when pleading with everyone to get Jai Akash released from prison. Dhamu irritates us in the name of comedy as he tries to show off his mimicry skills.