The social vigilante theme has been a popular one with our directors and heroes for obvious reasons. But that is a disadvantage too since there are not many routes left to explore in that theme. Some directors - Shankar, ofcourse, is the most obvious example - have been able to extract a lot out of the basic plot but Kavinbala unfortunately isn't in the same league. His inability to add anything new to the basic plot or present it with style makes Kanagavel Kaakka familiar and dry.

Velu(Karan) works as a dawali at the High Court in Chennai. Naturally, he is a witness to all the cases where justice isn't dispensed correctly because of the machinations of the accused. So he takes it upon himself to inflict punishment on those who evade the law in this manner. But his main target is the corrupt minister Ayyanarappan(Kota Srinivasa Rao), whose son Thirunavukkarasu(Sampath) is a lawyer who sees to it that the criminals released.

Kanagavel Kaakka kicks off interestingly with a botched assassination attempt. The sequence contains good action, generates suspense and includes a couple of good surprises as it simultaneously raises questions about Karan's actions and reveals Kota's true colors. Unfortunately, the rest of the film never comes close to the opening sequence in all those three elements - action, suspense and surprise.

Once the film reveals that Karan is a court employee who delivers punishment to people who beat the law, it begins to faithfully follow the trajectory of all the movies about social vigilantes. There is absolutely no deviation from the formula as Karan punishes the bad guys, a policeman(Aditya) chases him but is always a step behind and Karan becomes popular among the public as his actions become well-known. Even individual scenes (like some unscrupulous men correcting their ways out of fear for Karan) remind us scenes from the other films. And it comes as no surprise that Karan has a tragic, melodramatic flashback detailing his enmity with Kota and his anger at injustice in general.

The episodes where Karan hits his targets have him doing cinematic, old-fashioned things like infiltrating a rich man's house by employing a weak disguise and dancing at a party. Still, the lack of too many diversions(the only comedy is provided by Vaiyapuri as Kota's sidekick) and the satisfaction of seeing a social vigilante carry out his agenda keeps things moving along. But this last only until the climax. With Karan's plan not working out, a series of lame acts by the bad guys and a predictable finish to the whole thing, the film ends on an anti-climactic, weak note.

Karan slips into the masala social-vigilante role quite easily and shows enough energy in the action sequences to carry it off. Dhansika has an unnecessary role thrust in for the sake of a weak romance and unimaginatively-picturized duets and so has little chance to make an impression. Aditya, who has been getting roles of some prominence lately, is impressive as the cop saddled with a task he doesn't have his whole heart in. Kota is his usual self while Sampath gets another run-of-the-mill bad guy role.