Surya(Bharath) and Chandran(Bharath) are twins who have been brought up by their mother(Indu) after their father committed suicide when they were boys. While Surya runs a lending library, Chandran works at a mortuary, doubling as a party worker for Namachivayam(Mahadevan), a powerful politician. Surya and Namachivayam's daughter Manimegalai(Bhavana) fall in love but Namachivayam, who doubts something might be afoot, isn't too happy about it. Meanwhile, Chandran strikes up a friendship with Selvi(Sandhya), the daughter of a drunkard.

Movies with double roles aren't all that common and it's even more uncommon for a movie with a double role to unfold without resorting to familiar plot developments and cliches. Koodal Nagar belongs in this small group. Inspite of Bharath featuring in a dual role, it is not a masala about brothers separated at birth or a comedy with mistaken identity as a major plot point. It is a serious movie where the brothers' grow up together and their similarity in appearance doesn't even come into play until the final third of the movie. The fact that it doesn't exploit the dual role more sometimes seems like a disappointment but it also makes the film quite unpredictable.

The romance betweem Bharath and Sandhya feels quite substantial. It contains some good laughs during their initial meetings and the sentiments as they become closer feel real (like in the scene where Sandhya asks Bharath if he drinks). So its too bad that the track has little bearing on the main story. The movie revolves around the Bharath-Bhavana love affair and this doesn't have quite the same impact. It feels too rushed and abrupt inspite of a substantial portion of the first half being devoted to its development and so, doesn't involve us. I couldn't shake off the feeling that if the movie had mainly been about Bharath and Sandhya, it would've been a lot more effective.

After proceeding in a straightforward manner with two romances, the movie finally gains some energy with a scene - and plot development - that is as unexpected as it is brutal. This then leads to a sequence that the movie has been building upto ever since we were first introduced to its protagonists. Inspite of this, the sequence is powerful and shakes us atleast a little bit. But the director is unwilling to leave things at that and tries to further shake us up with an unnecessary, cliched tactic. But that ends up being overkill and has the opposite effect of diluting the emotional impact of the scene.

The entire film gives the feeling of a lot of material having ended up on the editing room floor. A lot of things happen in the movie but many of them seem to have no consequence. As I mentioned in the review for Veyyil , we expect most, if not all, scenes in a film to play a part in the movie. But Koodal Nagar has too many scenes or plot points that make us ask why they were included in the first place.

Bharath once again proves that he has grown into a competent actor. He differentiates well between the 2 roles but the best part is that he doesn't overdo it. He uses mostly his eyes and body language to tell us who we are looking at(though the lack of visual difference between the two does make it difficult sometimes). In the same way, as Chandran, he conveys through minimal effort, his affection towards his brother. Bhavana has little to do inspite of playing an important part. Sandhya is better off and though she too overdoes the innocent part of her role, she isn't as irritating as Navya in Maayakkannaadi . Mahadevan seems to have become the villain of the day and does a competent job. Tamilselvi... and Yaaradhu... are the pick of Sabesh-Murali's soundtrack.