Kizhakku Kadarkarai Saalai has a likeable lead pair, an interesting setting for their romance and a heartless villain to set up roadblocks. But weak and confusing characterization overrides all that to result in a tepid romance. And the fact that it is the oldest kind of romance(rich girl-poor boy) in Tamil cinema doesn't help either.

Ganesh(Srikanth) works in a petrol bunk on East Coast Road. He tells his friends that money is not an object in love and challenges them that he will make Priya(Bhavana), a rich college girl, fall in love with him. His plan works and Priya falls for him but he then reveals to her that he does not love her and that his plan was only to make her fall for him.

KKS is guilty of raising our expectations and not meeting them. Srikanth is never shown as a regular loverboy. While he woos Bhavana like any other Tamil movie hero, there always seems to be something a little off about him. Our doubts are confirmed when he rebuffs Bhavana when she finally reciprocates his affections. But the movie then disappoints. It resolves things lamely and proceeds as a cliched poor boy-rich girl love story with familiar characters like the girl's brother who opposes the romance. Srikanth is given a flashback but while it gives his character some background and explains a few things, it doesn't explain his confusing behavior with Bhavana.

Love stories need interesting characters for the romance to work. The viewers need to be emotionally attached with the characters and their issues. That becomes a little difficult when one is not sure whether one of the characters is really in love or not! Srikanth's intentions are never clear to us and his feelings change so quickly that he comes off looking a bit unstable. This is the second movie (after Oru Naal Oru Kanavu) where Srikanth is saddled with a character whose intentions we are never sure about.

Srikanth's flashback explains many of his actions that seemed weird earlier(like his talking to the ocean). Towards the end, the director seems to be moving towards giving the happenings in his flashback, some kind of closure. Things point to a repeat of something that happened earlier and the film seems to be moving towards an ending that is connected to what happened before. But he inexplicably abandons that and finishes the movie in an irritatingly familiar fashion.

Srikanth suffers mainly because he is saddled with a bad character. Like us, he also seems confused about what his feelings towards Bhavana are and so looks lost. Bhavana looks pretty but isn't taxed much. Suresh, making a comeback after a long time, is ineffective. His character is quite ruthless but he is never able to convey that through his performance.