S.J.Suryah's popularity and success is one of the great mysteries of Tamil cinema right now. While casting himself as the hero in his own movies is no big deal, he seems to have now advanced to being a bonafide hero by being cast as hero in movies by other directors too. Kalvanin Kaadhali is the first such movie where he is directed by someone else. A more controlled Suryah still gets on our nerves but the film is engaging enough to make us look beyond him.

Sathya(S.J.Suryah) is a playboy. He pursues a woman with single-minded devotion until he beds her, after which he drops her like a hot potato. He sets his sights on Haritha(Nayanthara) next and manages to earn her love. But she isn't ready to give herself to him just yet and when she begins talking about marriage, Sathya is ready to sever the relationship. But that's not easy.

It requires a real stretch of imagination to accept S.J.Suryah as a casanova who can seduce any woman he wants. His looks, his body language, his voice, his way of talking - any one of them would drive away the woman in question, I think. So presenting him as a romeo is carrying things a bit too far. As in A Aa, he is the biggest liability of the film here. Replace him with another, more appealing actor, and the movie's entertainment values goes up by quite a bit.

But that said, the director does make Suryah woo Nayanthara in a way that makes the suspension of disbelief just a little bit easier. His MO is fresh and involves some cute ideas(the way he reveals his love for her is really clever and sweet) and there are some nice laughs in his tactics. Nayanthara's character too is fashioned well. Though we accept her as a level-headed girl who is careful about who she falls for, we can still accept the fact that a girl like her falls for the kind of guy she thinks Suryah is. Credit for that goes to the director.

The humor that saves the initial portions of the film is absent once Suryah and Nayanthara split up and Suryah attempts to get her back. Sentiments gain the upper hand and the movie begins to drag. The end is ofcourse predictable but the director fails to make things interesting while getting there. Characters like the girl Nayanthara sees Suryah with needlessly stretch things out.

Compared to A Aa, Suryah is less hyper here. But he still seems to overact and his voice modulation is plain irritating. Nayanthara though looks gorgeously simple, almost making us forget her turn in Ghajini. She turns in a good performance too, giving the role the seriousness it deserves. Vivek's comedy is filled with double entendres whenever he is talking to Suryah and his friends. The separate comedy pieces are painfully unfunny. Taj Mahal... and Eno Kangal... are sweet melodies from Yuvan Shankar Raja.