With movies like Karuppusamy Kuthagaithaarar, Kokki and even Thee Nagar(with the last mentioned being a flop, looks like Karan went back to his K fixation when it comes to names of his movies), it looked like Karan was cementing his place by selecting movies that had somewhat unique subjects. But that hope is dashed with his latest film Kaathavaraayan, which is as commercial as movies get. Ofcourse that by itself is not a problem. The problem is that it is a bad commercial movie with a confused storyline, unnecessary vulgarity and crude comedy.

Kaathavaraayan(Karan) is a manufacturer of illicit liquor. Though his trade is illegal he has a few rules, key among them being that he sells only quality liquor and quite cheaply. This affects the business of Eeswaran('Kaadhal' Dhandapani), who runs a number of liquor shops in several areas. Malathi(Vidhisha), a student who comes to the town as part of an NSS camp, sees the destruction Kaathavaraayan's liquor is bringing to the area and vows to clean it up.

With all these movies with squeaky-clean heroes, any movie whose protagonist has some shades of gray automatically earns our interest. Kaathavaraayan starts off with that advantage but squanders it soon enough as Karan's business makes no real difference to the movie. We see Karan doing quality control on his liquor and paying off cops but we don't get any behind-the-scenes look(as in, say, Pollaadhavan, where we got a fascinating look at the at how bikes are stolen and disposed) the trade really works. Instead we get Radha, who apparently never learned how to wear a saree properly, secretly loving Karan and Vadivelu turning into moneylender for a series of increasingly unfunny segments.

With Vidisha setting up camp in town and vowing to clean it up, the movie looks like its shaping up into a message-oriented film along the lines of Unnaal Mudiyum Thambi. But as it stumbles into the second half, the illicit liquor angle is dropped and focus shifts to the drug trade; the film moves from the village to the city; and some characters completely disappear while other characters undergo complete transformations. So the two halves feel completely disjoint. The two halves aren't particularly good and so this abrupt shift just makes the entire movie seem even less than the sum of its parts.

The little interest the movie earned initially because of Karan's profession is completely lost in the second half as he turns into a regular hero trying to save the damsel in distress. The plot points - how Karan changes, how Vidisha is framed - are all quite amateurish and the film descends into routine masala.

Karan looks the part initially as the liquor trader but comes up woefully short once he turns into a regular hero. Vidisha looks lost while Radha, who we earlier saw in Sundara Travels, is on hand just to up the glamour quotient. Vadivelu indulges in his usual shtick of being duped by the villagers as he tries to get laughs out of being cheated by them.