The 'Other'. Review on Anniyan Movie

There are three things that are great about this movie...Vikram, Vikram and Vikram!

Well that was a little excessive I know. But to give credit to where credit is due, Shankar and his whole technical team did an awesome job too. Some out of the world fight sequences and over the top acting packaged well into a film that would reach the masses.

Bravo Shankar! Done it again...

The story in itself is simplistic with an ordinary middle class lawyer Ambi, unable to fight the petty injustice and carelessness of the system. Be it the eve teasers on the bus or the traffic rule breakers on the road. Petty as these may seem they escalate on one fateful day to result in the death of a hit and run victim whom Ambi is unable to save due to the indifference of the people around him.

In his immense frustration and sense of futility he turns to a website which claims to keep account of men's crimes and punishing them in accordance with the Garudapurana (a hindu description equivalent of the Judgement Day and Dante's Hell)

OK I will reveal the plot since suspense is not the selling point of the movie. The answer to Ambi's frustrations is Anniyan the supernaturally strong nemesis of the wrongdoer. Needless to say Anniyan is a split personality of the docile Ambi!

Then there is also a subplot where Ambi woos his neighbour (The extremely plastic Sadha) and gets rejected for being a 'Bore' and a stickler for rules. The extreme pain of rejection spawns another personality, Remo. Remo is the suave romeo that Sadha cannot resist (pardon me for I do not even remember what the name of the character was in the movie...She was so inconsequential!).

As Anniyan goes on a rampage, dispatching rough justice to the wrongdoers, all accompanied by a cryptic sanskrit word describing the punishment. Hot on his heels are Prakashraj and Vivek, the 2 crime branch officers, investigating the crimes done by Anniyan.

The interesting investigation techniques and Vivek in general keep the funny bone tickled at all the right times. Credit to Shankar on never letting the humour detract from the story telling...

As the 3 personalities of Ambi converge to one awesome climax, we get to see why Vikram was the winner of the National award for acting last year. The climactic sequence with Prakashraj is awesome with Anniyan and Ambi switching personalities in split seconds.

All in all an awesome movie which draws inspiration from Matrix and Fight Club for action choreography and story telling respectively.

Now for the few cons of the movie, the action was wee bit unbelievable at times retracting from the otherwise brilliant sequences elsewhere in the movie. For example the Martial Arts academy sequence was a little too much! (Highly reminiscent of the fight between Neo and the hordes of Agent Smiths in Matrix Reloaded).

The entire audience of Tamil Nadu would have grown in cinematic intelligence if Shankar had chosen to play the 3 split personalities of Ambi with Three actors....that would have given a terrific kick at the climax, though it would have made the climactic scene a lot more to shoot and still maintain the momentum.

Of course this is only my opinion (inspired by Fight Club, needless to say!). I am already missing this movie. Who knows I may see it again!