Arulnidhi, who played a down-to-earth role in his debut film Vamsam, has been bitten by the mass hero bug after just 1 film. The result of that bite is Udhayan, which sees him play the hero in another cookie-cutter masala film. While the film has a couple of twists that pleasantly surprise us, they are surrounded by an otherwise predictable and sluggish screenplay that doesn't allow it to capitalize on them.

Vasanth(Arulnidhi), an assistant manager at a bank, falls for Priya(Pranitha) and it doesn't take him too long to win her love too. Priya's dad, who works as the auditor for a rowdy Appu, isn't too happy when he comes to know of his daughter's romance. Appu, in order to help his trusted employee, sends some goons to convince Vasanth to let go of Priya. Meanwhile a powerful man(Ashish Vidyarthi) is searching for both Vasanth and Appu.

Barring a few scenes of Ashish Vidyarthi looking for someone, the first half is taken up almost entirely by the Arulnidhi-Pranitha romance. Arulnidhi's wooing style possesses some charm with his direct approach and his habit of not taking 'No' for an answer reminding us of Karthik in Mouna Raagam quite a bit. But Pranitha seems to fall for him too early and too easily. So his actions seem like too much work for someone as easy to impress as Pranitha and so the track as a whole doesn't feel charming.

The film has two well-timed twists that do come as nice surprises. The first one, which comes just before the intermission, comes as a nice development in a story that had hardly moved forward until then while the second one, introduced at the start of Arulnidhi's flashback, comes as an unexpected plot development in an otherwise very predictable story. But the movie settles down into predictability after both these happenings. So they turn out to be just momentary spikes in the interest level rather than plot points that are strong enough to drive the rest of the movie forward.

Considering Ashish Vidyarthi's quest, its no surprise that the movie relies on a flashback to clear things up. Barring the aforementioned surprise at the start, the flashback narrates a familiar story about a rowdy with strong hands and a soft heart. The way it connects the two separate threads in the present is too simplistic but it does satisfactorily answer the questions raised in the present.

Arulnidhi's wooden face and unmodulated dialog delivery play a significant role in why the romance track isn't very effective. He seems to be more comfortable and makes a better impression as the hot-headed youngster, even if that characters gets comparatively less screen time. Pranitha, who resembles Kajal Agarwal, has hit the big time now that's she's Karthi's heroine in Saguni but her performance here doesn't give us an indication of why. Santhanam raises a few laughs as he chases people who've defaulted on their loans but the couple of double entendre scenes seem unnecessary. Newcomer Manikanth Kadri doesn't give us any numbers that make an impression.