Arun Vijay's struggle to become a saleable hero has lasted over a decade now but the actor has still not found a good break. With Malai Malai he turns to what is usually the safest proposition for a hero looking for a hit - the mass masala film with a mix of action, romance, comedy and sentiments. For a while it looks like the film may become the elusive hit he's been looking for but an overload of sentiments towards the end damages it chances.

Pazhanivel(Prabhu) and Vetrivel(Arun Vijay) are brothers who think the world of each other. Vetrivel falls in love with Anjali(Vedhika), who is visiting her family, who live across the street from Vetrivel's house. To smooth his own path, he also tries to hook his brother up with ...(Kasturi). As Anjali's return to Chennai coincides with Vetrivel losing his job as a van driver, he goes to Chennai looking for her and joins as a driver at a courier company. This brings him in touch with Esakki(Prakashraj), a dreaded rowdy with political ambitions.

Movies where the hero goes up against the bad guy usually create situations where the two meet(or atleast cross each other) and then up the ante by pitting the two against one another more directly as the story moves forward. With Arun Vijay in Pazhani and Prakashraj in Chennai, no opportunities exist for this here and so the entire first act i.e. until Arun lands up in Chennai, feels pretty much redundant. There is the requisite romance(which has a few enjoyable moments like the indirect conversation Arun and Vedhika have) and action(as Arun bashed up some local rowdies), which are engaging enough but the segment goes on for too long considering that it only functions as setup for the main story.

While the film doesn't attain warp speed after bringing Arun and Prakashraj together, the two turn out to be interesting enough to produce a few sparks. Their encounters don't always proceed as we expect and Arun's behavior seems mostly rational in the incidents that lead upto his enmity with Prakashraj. With Arun looking for Vedhika, romance takes a backseat during these portions but the comedy, set in Arun's courier company, makes up for it and works for the most part. The film also springs an unexpected relationship on us but doesn't do much with it.

Towards the end, it almost seems like the director realized that action, comedy and romance had all got their time in the sun and felt that he had to insert sentiments to maintain balance and ensure that the movie became a true masala. So he goes overboard with sentiments, which are kicked off using the age-old ploy of one character sacrificing their life for another. There are a lot of sentiments and tears but no real emotions as the action of the characters seem pretty crass.

Arun Vijay has what it takes to play the hero in a masala outing. Vedhika looks good and shares good chemistry with him. Prabhu reminds us a lot of his father, especially when he attempts comedy. He is solid though he ends up hamming through the final overdose of sentiments. Prakashraj doesn't try to do anything different in another cliched bad guy role. Santhanam resorts to the most popular ruse of dressing up as characters from other films to earn laughs.