Saroja is a road movie. Whatever can go wrong in 24 hours will go wrong is the principle on which the movie is based. The director Venkat Prabhu had the guts to make a flick that was different from the commercial format, but succumbed to the temptation of adding a few commercial elements which made the flick slightly longer than it should have been but it is nevertheless a decent movie.

What is it about:The film is about four friends, Rengasamy (SP Charan), Ram (Vaibhav), Ganesh Kumar (Premgi Amaren) and Ajay (Shiva) who set out on a road trip from Chennai to Hyderabad to see a one day cricket match. Meanwhile, in a parallel story, Saroja (Vega), daughter of a corrupt TV channel owner Viswanath (Prakash Raj) is kidnapped and sincere ACP Ravi Chandran (Srihari) is called to investigate the case. How the two stories get intertwined and how our ordinary men become heroes is the crux of the story.

What is Good: The intention behind the plot. It is a neat script and a cool idea to make a road movie, one that happens in 24 hours. Premgi Amaren's comedy is outstanding and he has the audience in splits even in the middle of a super tense scene. The performances are pretty neat. Technically, the film is top notch and the camerawork deserves special mention. The songs are all good, but have a distinct Tamil flavor in them.

What is bad: The unnecessary songs, the unnecessary flashback between Vaibhav and Kajal and the pace of the flick. The plot of the movie is of the one line story types and for it to work, a taut screenplay was the need of the hour. The director spends half an hour taking us through two unnecessary songs and character flashbacks. Also, the fights that are shown are pretty graphic. The editor could have used his scissors a bit more strictly. Also a film like this should not have a run time of more than 2 hours whereas Saroja goes on for nearly 2hrs 20 min.

Me Thinks: The flick could have been way better, but it is still a decent watch for fans of road movies. The film will find it tough at the box office, especially in the face of stiff competition from the other release today, Ashta Chamma. Go only if you like wannabe thrillers.