Last year, movies like Jjunction and Gummaalam gave rise to the notion that movies revolving around college students were bankrupt as far as ideas went and made up for that with sex and vulgarity. Some recent movies with newcomers have helped to erase that opinion somewhat. But ironically, Boys, made by Shankar, an established director with an enviable track record, simply serves to reinforce that theory. Though containing Shankar's trademark racy screenplay and sense of grandeur, the vulgarity in the first half of the movie completely puts us off.

Munna(Sidharth), Juju(Nakul), Babu, Krishna and Kumar are the 'Boys', whiling away their time drinking and chasing after girls. Munna and Harini(Harini) fall in love and facing opposition from both their families, elope and get married. Forced to earn money in order to continue their studies, the group of six decide to release an album of religious songs. This brings them fame but they continue to run into more problems that ultimately put to test the love between Munna and Harini.

Under the pretext of showing the 'real' life of youth, Shankar starts the movie off with a volley of vulgar and crude scenes that make us squirm in our seats. While the series of dialogs and scenes where the boys talk about and implement deriving cheap pleasure by brushing against older women are particularly disgusting, the scenes where they hire a prostitute and put on a show for the benefit of the other boys outside, are no less crude. Dialog writer Sujatha proves to be Shankar's partner in crime as he comes up with lines that have a liberal sprinkling of double entendres. Some of the lines(like the conversation between Juju and his date on her exercises) are startlingly blatant and had no business getting past the censors.

But inspite of the vulgarity, the biggest disappointment in the movie is the fact that Shankar adopts the same route as several other lesser-known filmmakers for a movie based on youth. In Boys too, the guys think of nothing other than girls, the girls, who walk around in skimpy clothes, are their equal when it comes to discussing sex, they never talk about studies or their future and there are no scenes of them in their colleges. Worse, the story itself is rather unoriginal. While the story of an eloping couple supported by their friends was seen in Thulluvadho Ilamai, the group coming together to form a music troupe and rising to stardom is depressingly familiar(was last seen in Punnagai Desam.

Probably realising that he had a stale, rather cliched story on hand, Shankar stuffs in a lot while chronicling the group's attempt to release a music album. The release of a religious album, their getting mixed up with a radical group and the stint in jail manage to keep the screenplay moving at a reasonable pace. But there are some needless sentiments that go against the lighthearted atmosphere prevalent in the rest of the movie.

Thankfully there are no disappointments in the technical departments as the song picturizations, cinematography and set design are top class as usual. The stop-motion technique(which apparently required a whole lot of cameras) used in Ale Ale... is definitely something new in Tamil cinema and peps up an otherwise ordinary romantic duet. The sets in Boom Boom... and Secret of success... catch our eye. Maro Maro... has been mounted on a lavish scale and is picturised grandly. The scene where Sidharth runs nude on Mount Road has been picturised rather audaciously but the ensuing chase is quite thriling. All the new faces perform quite naturally and seem at ease in front of the camera. Sidharth and Nakul catch our attention among the boys while Harini is adequate. All the actors potraying the parents of the six kids are natural and perform with conviction. Vivek has little chance to be funny since he is preaching most of the time.