Any hype and hoopla created before the release of a movie has always proved to be very fatal for the result of the movie. We have seen movies of the two giants in Tamil Cinema Rajinikanth ( his baba) and Kamal Hassan ( his alavandan), both failing to make any impact after its much hype preluding to its releases. Now, Anniyan probably the most awaited movie of the year releases with loads of expectations of the people all over the world. The Hype and expectations created before the movie released has once again proved to be very fatal.
Lets first look at the story line of the movie. The movie begins with the protagonist of the movie ambhi aka rules ramanujam, a lawyer by profession who hates any form of disorder. He is taken aback when he sees the carelessness and complacency of the people in very primitive things like obeying the traffic rules, ignoring customer satisfaction, maintaining a clean ambience etc etc. He is helpless as he finds himself fighting a lone battle against the whole nation. He feels dejected as even Nandinee the girl whom he loved for seven years rejects him saying he is useless, boring just like an algorithm. In the mean time we are introduced to the character Anniyan, who seem to host a website named Anniyan.com where he requests the people to submit their problems. He promises that the accused would be punished in accordance to his crime as per Garudapuranam. As promised he kills the people namely the guy whose negligence leads to the death of an old man, a contracter who fails to provide healthy standard food for the railways, and a business tycoon who tries to cover up his substandard product.Then we have the ramp walk model Remo who has ravishing looks and for whom nandini falls for. The director then reveals the fact that all three Ambhi, Anniyan, Remo all the three characters arent three different individuals but different alters of Ambhi himself. It’s a case of Multiple Personality Disorder. There is a flash back which reveals why Ambhi gets affected by Multiple personality disorder. By this time the Police force finds out the killer of all these gruesome murders. The climax of the movie reveals explicitly the Multiple Personality Disorder which Ambhi suffers from and so he is proven to be innocent as actually the killings were done by his Alter personality and not him. So he is asked to be sent to an Rehabilitation Center, for complete recovery.
Vikram has come up with another astounding performance and the whole movie is shouldered by him. He is getting better as each movie goes by. He has played all the three characters with such easiness and great divergence. His performance in the last half an hour of the movie where the alters get shifted for split seconds is something extraordinary. Sada is apt as the heroine. Prakash raj comes with another sterling performance as the police officer, vivek provides him an apt foil.
Being shankars eighth directional venture, where his last seven outings have been successful there was indeed great expectations for the movie. Added he had teamed up with Vikram who had just bagged his first National Award. The plot selected by shankar for this so called magnum opus reminds of his previous ones namely gentleman and Indian. Especially the dialogues and the scenes where Anniyan kills the lawbreakers and when he meets the public strongly reminds you of Indian. The graphics and the much talked Time slicing techniques seems to have been over done and over dosed. Sadly there was no novel idea in the plot or the script other than the Multiple Personality Disorder. Some how we get the Feeling that Shankar ran out of ideas and hence he recycled his good old thoughts.
Manikandans camera work needs Special accolades, especially in the song sequences and stunt scenes. Sujathas dialogues gives special edge for the script though at times it looks a repetition of Indian. The music for the movie by Harris Jeyraj on the whole is good. He has come up with some peppy numbers as Kathal yanani already heading the charts. Sabu cyrils sets are as lavishing as it can get and also gives the feeling why waste so much money.
The movie on the whole is watchable. But was the movie worth the wait for one year? Was it worth the whopping 29 crores? Was it worth the hype created before its release?….Sadly these questions go unanswered .This was very my evident in the peoples face who were leaving the cinema halls after watching the movie. There was a visible string of disappointment in their faces. If the movie proves to be Super hit and if it could get back the money invested it could prove all the critics wrong. I personally feel only The magical Spell of Vikrams acting can alone save the movies fate.