Gajendra(Vijayakanth) is a loyal servant in the house of Azhagayyar(Sarathbabu). His master in turn treats him as a member of the family and is also willing to let him marry his granddaughter Kasturi(Flora), who loves him. Gajendra, unknown to the family, takes care of Indu(Laya), who is mentally retarded. When the family comes to know about Indu, they ask Gajendra to explain his relationship with her but he refuses. As a result, he is cut off from Azhagayyar's family and continues trying to cure Indu. When Indu is cured, her first shocking act towards Gajendra brings into the open, his past as Gaja, a savior of the people in Hyderabad.

Gajendra has quite a meaty story with enough oppurtunities for action, romance, comedy and sentiments. The lighthearted first half is responsible for three of these with Flora's pursuit of Vijayakanth, Ramesh Khanna's one-liners and Vijayakanth's affection for Laya. Vijayakanth's relationship with Sarathbabu's family is etched out well with small moments like the "hand or leg?" questions from Sarathbabu for two different situations. And the suspense about Laya keeps us involved in the story. But actions fans have little to cheer about in the first half. With no major villains for Vijayakanth to go up against, they have to be satisfied with smaller encounters like the fight at the golf course.

The fight sequence on the banks of the Kaveri among a huge crowd is staged impressively and marks the beginning of the action. Unlike the initial two fights, which have the usual Vijayakanth trademark of gravity-defying stunts but are relatively bloodless, violence abounds in this(and subsequent fights). with a specially shaped axe being his weapon of choice, there is a lot of slicing and hacking and blood flows freely. Laya's act at the end of the fight is also a good surprise, providing a nice start to the flashback.

The flashback starts off lightly with Vijayakanth's meetings with Laya and Bhaskar at the hospital. But past that, it is mostly more action of the same violent variety. With a getup reminding one of Baasha , Vijayakanth makes up for the lack of violence in the first half by going up against two villains. There are a lot of stunts and almost all the bad guys meet rather gory deaths. But with Vijayakanth apparently spending quite a bit of time growing to be a dada in Hyderabad, one can't help wondering how he explained this time away after returning to Sarathbabu's house(especially since he calls home at one point saying that he would be back the next day). And if one went by this movie, everyone in Hyderabad, from the cop to the temple priest, speaks Tamil!

Vijayakanth appears to have taken some strain in the stunt sequences. But he is quite portly and camera shots that revolve around him are not very flattering. He gets quite a few loaded punchlines, some of which work while others don't fit and seem artificial. Laya gets the meatier role and looks cute while Flora disappears after a few initial scenes. Surprisingly, there are no duets for Vijayakanth with either of them. There is a huge supporting cast and character actors like Sarathbabu, Seetha, Radharavi and Vinu Chakravarthy perform their roles well. Both Nawab and Rajat Bedi are convincing as the heartless dadas.