Marudhamalai(Arjun) is now a constable, fulfilling the long-time dream of his father(Nasser), who wanted his son to join the police force. Marudhamalai is posted to Nachiarpuram, a reserved constituency, which means that only someone from a lower caste can contest the elections and become an MLA. But Maasi(Lal), who belongs to a higher caste, can't bear the thought of someone from the lower caste becoming an MLA and so has prevented elections from being conducted for the past 16 years. The Election Commissioner(Raghuvaran) arrives in Nachiarpuram to personally ensure that elections are held and Marudhamalai gets dragged into the mess.

Nasser's dream of Arjun becoming a policeman, their move to an area under the grip of a dada, Arjun's romance with a Nila, the way Arjun ends up clashing with Lal - almost every aspect of Marudhamalai echoes Kireedam. The only difference is that all these aspects have been presented with more masala - which, in this case, equates to them being over the top. There is also the comedy, that further puts masala stamp on the film. Here it is brought in by way of Vadivelu being the head constable at the police station. Following the recent trend, violence and bloodiness is equated with comedy(the first encounter between Arjun and Vadivelu ends with Vadivelu getting poked in the eye) but there are a few laughs in their game of one-upmanship.

With a cop and a dreaded dada, there are very few ways in which the story can proceed and the director doesn't try anything new. After resembling Kireedam until now, the movie then begins to remind us of movies like Saamy as Arjun goes up against Lal. With Lal in jail for most of the time, he seems really ineffectual and as a result, Arjun doesn't end up looking too heroic as he destroys Lal's empire. Their plans swing between being too simplistic and being too complicated to make much sense and so their clashes are barely interesting.

Inspite of the above issues, the clash could have been interesting if the film had simply stuck to it without any detours. Unfortunately, a couple of unnecessary segments serve as speedbumps that almost bring the movie to a halt. One, involving a minister trying to get a contract for his son, is actually confusing and sticks out. The second one, involving Arjun trying to make Nila jealous by faking a romance with Charan Preeth, is an obvious attempt to increase the glamor quotient in the film and add another duet. Both these segments simply extend the running time without adding anything to the story.

Arjun looks a bit younger than in his last few movies. There's no shortage of action here since he plays a policeman and as usual, he fights well. He's also always had good chemistry with Vadivelu and that run continues here too. Nila has obviously not taken any acting lessons since her debut and has a stock set of expressions that she uses here also. Raghuvaran makes us feel sorry for him with the most pathetic character in the film while Lal is a usual villain.