With neither Citizen nor Poovellaam Un Vaasam doing as well as expected, Ajeeth is desperately looking for a hit to make sure his career doesn't go into another one of those slides that he is so famous for. So he has turned to the same role that has given him two hits so far - that of the heroic, violence-prone but goodhearted don. But some unnecessary civic-mindedness, a listless romance and the blatant attempt at creating a larger-than-life image for Ajith make this Red a lot less appealing when compared to the hero in either Dheena or Amarkkalam.

Ajeeth is Red (it stands for Revolution, Education, Development), an orphan who has since grown up to be the local don in Madurai. Naturally he possesses a heart of gold and when not bashing up bad guys, he spends his time forcing schools to accept students without donations and taking care of orphans. Cheeni(Salim Ghouse) is his biggest enemy. Red falls for Gayatri(Priya Gill), the daughter of his friend and confidante Narayanan(Manivannan) and helps her without her knowledge. She too likes him but wants him to give up his life of violence. Meanwhile a reporter(Rajesh) for Ananda Vikatan begins to serialise Red's story under the name Aadi and it becomes quite the rage among readers.

Both Ajith's and first time director Ram Sathya's attempt to emulate the success of Dheena is all too apparent here. The introductory fight in the rain, Ajeeth's frequent, slow-motion walk with his goons in tow, his less-than confident approach to romance and the sentiments - all remind us of his 2001 Pongal hit. But unfortunately, the director fails to put these elements together in the same entertaining manner. Here the fights are routine, the romance is feeble and the sentiments are overblown. There are some moments to appreciate in all of them but these are too minor and too far apart to salvage the movie.

The idea of Ajith's life appearing in print is novel and considering the addictive nature of true stories, the dedicated readership for it is somewhat believable. It also sets the stage for a different climax which has not been exploited fully. On the contrary, the sight of a huge crowd of people wearing dresses with 'Aadhi' stitched on them and being herded around becomes inadvertently funny. The director also shows us that he is capable of portraying a cute romance with a few scenes(for instance, the scene where the autodriver brings Priya Gill to Ajeeth). But on the whole, the romance is quite dull.

The entire movie seems targeted towards Ajeeth fans only. Several of the dialogs(like his belief in those having his photo in their autos) seem designed to elicit whistles from his fans. Many of his intial activities, like his tirade against schools collecting donations and his attachment towards the orphans in the orphanage too seem to be aimed at building up his image. But the director in his enthusiasm has overdone it and groans are induced any time Ajeeth begins one of his speeches. Infact the director fails to even be consistent in his portrayal of Ajeeth with his forced induction of Anand into the cricket team actually appearing to be corrupt.

Ajith looks flabby and though the shaved head does lessen his boyish look and help him look believable in the role, his voice lets him down. But he does attempt to introduce some gimmicks like pushing back his collar, rubbing his head and shouting "Adhu". Priya Gill is a huge misfit for a poor Madurai girl and her lack of emoting strength is obvious at a few places too. Salim Ghouse rants and raves like a regular villain but does nothing much otherwise. Manivannan has a few funny lines but the most laughs are brought about by the artificial sentiments(as when police inspector Rajeev visits Ajeeth and presents him with a shawl!). Vindhya has a single song sequence though the director attempts to provide her with a semblance of a background with two other scenes.

Deva does a good job with the soundtrack and though the picturisation is nothing new the song sequences do manage to keep the viewer in his seat. Roja Kaattu... and November Maadham... are both nice mix of melody and catchiness. Red Red... is the typical introductory song while Til Til Til... is another catchy number whose lyrics talk about the best products from different countries.