When Sundar. C started his innings as an actor by playing a rowdy-with-a-conscience in 2006's Thalainagaram, he didn't exactly appear to be taking the mass masala route favored by many of our actors. But disappointingly, all his movies since then have pointed to his desire to turn into the poor man's Vijay, with each movie telegraphing his commercial intentions louder than the one before. All those movies featured flimsy stories, cheap glamour and loud comedy but even in that list, Perumal will feature close to the bottom of the heap.

Perumal(Sundar. C) reposseses cars from borrowers who have defauted on their loans. His business gets him in touch with Saroja(Nameetha), a car thief. One of Perumal's job takes him to Rayalaseema in AP, where he helps out a girl(Meenakshi) who is on the run, by hiding her in his car. Turns out she has proof of the involvement of a local politician Annayya(Kota Srinivasa Rao) and his son in the business of illegal medicines and drugs. Perumal takes her back to Chennai to hide her until he can take her to court but Annayya arrives in Chennai looking for Perumal.

With the short prologue and the drug-related headlines forming the backdrop for the opening credits, the movie raises hopes that it would be about a significant issue. But the silliness in the proceedings, whether in the romance between Sundar and Nameetha or the comedy between Sundar and Vivek, dashes our hopes soon enough. The issue does finally make an appearance as Meenakshi enters the picture. But the amateurishness with which it is presented, like when a doctor in the Government hospital openly uses a banned drug and then verbally abuses a grandmother who has lost her grandson or when the bad guys invade the hospital and brazenly kill the chief doctor, is almost an insult to the seriousness of the issue.

The film creates a Gilli-like situation as Sundar hides Meenakshi in his house as Kota and his men are out looking for her and there's a little bit of Pandhayam too as Sundar finds employment in Kota's gang. Unfortunately, the film resembles the latter when it comes to building on the situation as neither scenario is exploited well enough to create any tension or suspense. Instead we get another half-baked romance as Meenakshi falls for Sundar, cliched, silly comedy as Sundar's brothers mistake Meenakshi for a ghost and weak comedy as Vivek tries to hide his blindness from those around him.

One of the reasons attributed to the moderate success of some previous Sundar. C ventures was Vivek's comedy and his chemistry with Sundar. That is probably why Vivek has such a large role here. He plays a man who is at the receiving end of Sundar's blows and when the action moves to AP, he takes on a second role of a Telugu man who helps the bad guys locate Sundar. But his double role unfortunately doesn't translate to double the fun. He seems to have taken to heart Vadivelu's MO that one needs to get hurt to be funny and ends up spending most of the movie getting injured in a variety of ways. His situation at the hands of his wife(who he marries under a mistaken assumption) and his mannerisms and accent in the Telugu role lead to a few chuckles but that's about it.

Sundar has shown no improvement as an actor in the last couple of years and holds the same expression whether he is romancing Nameetha, challenging the bad guys or needling Vivek. Nameetha matches him step for step when it comes to lack of acting skills and her childish expressions and voice are rather irritating. Even then, its pretty sad to see her shunted aside after Meenakshi is brought in. Meenakshi isn't a particularly good actress either but that's par for the course considering she's the second heroine. Kota is stereotypes as the bad politician.