The first half of the film directed by Badri is inspired heavily from the classic Mohanlal entertainer of mid 90’s Devasuram, while in the second half Simran’s negative character has traces of Neelambari of Padayappa, and one of the fight scenes is straight lift from Raiders of the Lost Ark!

Aintham Padai means the five man army, represented in the film by big brother Annachi alias Gunasekhar (Nassar), Karuna (Mukesh), Thanthoni (Vivek), Prabhakaran (Sundar.C) and a young brother. They are feudal landlords and run various businesses and are constantly at loggerheads with Dhanushkodi and family, who run all the illegal activities in town.

They are baying for each others blood, and the bad guys are targeting the strongest in the group Prabhakaran with whom they have their own axe to grind. In a flashback it is revealed that Prabha had killed one of the bad brothers (Raj Kapoor), who had forcibly tied the ‘Thali’ on his big brother’s fiancée Kalpana (Devayani)!!

Devasena (Simran) a Bharathanatiyam dancer and niece of Dhanushkodi, has run-in with Prabhakaran, which soon develops into love, but is spurned by our hero who is in love with a student Gayathri (Adithi)! Later she is forced to marry Karuna in a mistaken identity case.

She comes into the household with her own agenda, to split the unity among the five man army and destroy the man who scorned her love. The rest of the movie is how Prabhakaran turns into a one-man army and outwits the machinations of his sister-in-law who is hand in glove with the baddies.

Aintham Padai is a stock mass movie made strictly keeping the taste of audiences in B and C centers in mind. Sundar.C has improved in his dialogue delivery and fits the role of the “action hero”, as defined in mass masalas. Simran looks jaded, while Vivek has made a comeback of sorts playing to the gallery comedy track as Thanthoni and speaking with a Tirunelveli accent (with the repeated “Don’t worry, be happy”). D.Imman’s music is a snore.

There is no semblance of either style or substance, or more importantly a script! The film is a rehash of earlier crass commercials.

Verdict: Reheated Mass Masala