I liked some of Bala's previous movies, but the extended hype for this movie had also tired me out, so it was with a mix of anticipation and nonchalance that I went to watch the movie.I didn't really like the movie. I liked the Pooja half of the story, but the Arya half was very underdeveloped; to the extent that I found him irrelevant whenever they showed him, and wanted the story to return to Pooja.
I didn't like the fight scenes either, looked exactly like Pithamagan climax to me. In Pithamagan it was shocking and intriguing. In Naan Kadavul I found it boring; the two fights in the movie even resemble each other. The character's violence seemed very forced to me.
The MGR/Sivaji portions looked very irrelevant, as if there was a channel change to Vijay TV Kalakkapovathu Yaaru. And I also thought they should have rerecorded the songs that Pooja sings; I found it distracting that they just played the original songs.
Minuses aside, I did like some things about the movie, like most of the Pooja story arc. The very poor Arya characterisation is in stark contrast to the unbelievable depth in the Murugan character. The humour scenes involving the beggars, while crass, are quite funny.
Overall, the movie looked like Bala was very distracted and never had time to complete his thoughts. I really liked Pithamagan and Nandha, but this one didn't click for me.
