Whatever its faults, director Shakti Soundar Rajan’s Naaigal Jaakirathai is a decent fun-filled entertainer.

In some ways, Naaigal Jaakirathai feels like a new-age Rama Narayanan film — a pet helping the hero to overcome the villains is a trope that the director has used many times — but Shakti Soundar Rajan dials down on the camp and gives us a film that is more of an investigative thriller in which the dog plays a central role.

More could’ve been achieved in this laudable attempt but the director’s willingness to not challenge the cliches is very much evident. Nevertheless, “Naaigal Jaakirathai” is entertaining but beware of the formulaic presentation.

If you are a dog lover, you would have already booked your tickets. So why miss it?

The story itself is a plus, revolving around a dog and his noble life as a man’s best friend. A good deal of research seems to have gone into dog training and their usage in the defense force. The film makes good appeal geographically too. In all this, the fiction of the background of crime, possibility of a signalling device multiplies routed, and kidnapping strategies blend believably.

Naaigal Jaakirathai is a film where the idea sounds good but falls short in execution.

However, despite these inspirations, there are quite a few genuinely enjoyable moments in the first half of the film, one in which it hasn’t yet stepped into hero-has-to-rescue-heroine territory.

Naaigal Jaakirathai marks the comeback of Sibiraj after 4 years but most importantly, it marks the debut of a new star, a Belgian Shepherd dog named Idoh in the movie has stolen the show completely. Sibiraj’s last outing was in 2010 when he starred in the movie Naanayam.

Giving so much importance to a dog over the hero, logical screenplay, duration of the film and a engaging climax are the positives of Naaigal Jaakirathai. This is arguably the only authentic dog based film after the well known Rama Narayan directed stories that had animals playing vital roles.

An interesting premise and a definite welcome addition to the diverse nature of films that has been hitting the screens recently. A little more tightening of the screws and the bark would have been more loud and clear.

Naaigal Jakkirathai is a sensibly made film with a dog as a prime character which is a rarity in Tamizh cinema. It could have been a riveting thriller had some more depth been added to the characters.