Prabhu (Siddharth) and his friends come from Ananthapur and join a college in Bangalore to complete their graduation. Prabhu falls in love with his classmate, Rithika (Ashritha Shetty) who is the daughter of a powerful politician. He hires encounter specialist Manoj Menon (Kay Kay Menon) to bring back his daughter, that too before the midnight of that day as she is turning 18 and will have freedom to choose her partner. What happens next forms the rest of the story.
Siddharth played a subtle role in the movie unlike his usual self. He did it to good effect. But the problem is that the director failed to etch his character properly and audience could not connect to the character. Ashritha Shetty suited well to the role of a naive college girl. Her performance is good. Kay Kay Menon is awesome as ever. Rest of them are okay.
The success of any thriller lies in keeping the suspense in tact and delivering racy screenplay. Manimaaran was not totally successful in this issue. The suspense elements are almost revealed by the end of first half and it looked like a wild goose chase later. The director seem to be confused with Siddharth's character. Insteading of creating interest on the character, audience get confused. The emotion relation between Hero and audience is not built and that is the reason why audience could not get engrossed.
Music by GV Prakash is okay. The back ground score enhanced the impact of few scenes. Songs are good but the translation of lyrics totally killed the effect.
Cinematography is pretty ordinary. Editing can not be any worser for a thriller. The movie should have been chopped atleast for 15-20 minutes. The dubbing work is aweful.
The movie is certainly not for the audience who expect songs, comedy etc from Siddharth. A little care in the screenplay, characterization and editing could have taken the movie to next level but finally it ended as an average fare