While we never had any heist movies in Tamil until this year's Naanayam, small cons have played a part in many of our films. Katradhu Kalavu has the interesting concept of a couple implementing a number of cons. But the tight screenplay makes their travails after the cons more interesting than the cons themselves.

No longer are Krishna(Krishna) and Krishnaveni(Vijayalakshmi) married in a temple in Rameswaram than they go on the run, chased by Stanley(Kalyan) and his men, who are from the Intelligence Bureau in Delhi. They are rescued by a flower-seller(Sampath), who manages to take them out of the temple premises, to a safehouse. Soon Krishna is forced to tell him about how he met Veni, convinced her to join him in executing a series of cons and what got them into their current situation.

The film begins with a fantastic chase that has us rooting for Krishna and Vijayalakshmi without knowing anything about them. Their flashbacks help build on those first impressions. While he is a smart and idealistic young man who is cheated by someone he trusted, she is a young woman who has run away from home in order to realize her dreams. Their relationship starts off quite suddenly but they do seem made for each other as they begin hatching their plans.

Krishna and Vijayalakshmi teaming up to execute some cons reminds us of Bunty and Bubli, especially since one of their scams involves the sale of a large piece of property. Cons are always interesting as we see some clever ideas being planned and executed. The cons here too feature some nice ideas but the film doesn't dwell on each of them long enough for us to appreciate them fully. Also, the comic touch robs the edge off the couple's cons here since their targets - or is it victims? - being a couple of village bumpkins makes the cons lose their seriousness and kills the suspense.

The final con puts the couple in a situation similar to what the leads found themselves in in films like Vaamanan and Muthirai. The screenplay is moved forward very cleverly as the characters with different motives try to get what they want. The cleverness is maintained till the end as the knots are resolved cleanly and things are closed up without any unfinished business.

Krishna, the brother of director Vishnuvardhan, seems a little more assured than he was in his debut Ali Baba. He displays some nice agility in the opening sequence and the couple of disguises he uses sit on him well. Vijayalakshmi doesn't play as big a part in the cons but she displays helplessness quite well when in captivity. Sampath, who seems to be alternating between good characters and run-of-the-mill bad guy roles gets one of the former here and is impressive. Kalyan too catches our eye as he pursues the couple relentlessly.