Kamal Haasan is certainly one of the most talented and popular stars of Indian Cinema. Many of his comedies are worth watching several times. But Thenali is not one of Kamal's best movies. Its mindless comedy. The performances are good but the story lacks any substance and continuity. Jayaram and Kamal and Crazy Mohan have succeeded in making the audience laugh out loud but once you come out of the theater, you just don't remember anything except the peppy songs tuned by A.R. Rahman.
All said and done, this was a blockbuster hit. 'Thenali' ran for nearly 200 days throughout Tamil Nadu and even its dubbed Telugu version did good business. It was made on a shoe-string budget but turned out to be a highly-profitable film.