Saw the much talked-about film anniyan today. I had read a couple of reviews about the movies some days back. Bare a few, almost all of them acclaimed vikram's performance that steals the show, and none of them had the scathing tone which was ubiquitous in their reviews about shankar'searlier venture 'boys'. Truely anniyan must be another feather in the crown for vikram. He continues to be a director's delight. A stunning performance as three different characters supported by whiz kid shankar's direction, the film is bound to draw a formidable audience among all classes.
The film is about ambi ramanujam (vikram), a middle class lawyer who lives in an utopian world, stricly law abiding in all its sense. He gets frustrated by the way the world around him behaves with him. In addition his childhood sweet heart nandini(sada) ditches him because of his seemingly hyperbolic ways of strictness. Out of these reasons he develops a Multiple personality disorder by which he changes into the vicious character anniyan, killing the antagonists of the society as per punishments given in the hell for sinners. A character called remo, a flamboyant model, comes to the scene. He is none other than ambi himself. As expected nandini falls for him. The rest of the film is about how ambi comes to know about his alter presonalities and ultimately winding up with a terrific climax scene. - i think thats an allround review without much spoilers.
plus points are obviously vikram's performance - the scenes where he switches between the characters are simply brilliant. Then comes the camerawork. Ravivarman's camera lavishes on the beautiful tulip gardens of amsterdam. Sabu Cyril's artwork is evidently superb especially that of the sets of thyagarajar music fest and that of the song "iyengare veetu..". Harris Jayaraj has , to an extend, filled the ar rahman vacuum in the shankar film. But he couldn't deliver a effective BGM for the movie.(compared with the one he did for kaakha kaakha).
Peter heyne's stunt sequences are breathtaking but at points they seem to be blowing out of proportion - man! people flying on a single blow is increasingly indigestible.
Flipsides - the concept of MPD has been already overused, first we had manichitrathazhu, then aptamitra and the latest with chandramukhi. One who is used to shankar's earlier movies can spot a familiar and repetitive anticorruption, antibureacracy thread that manifests itself in the form of punching dialogues which as intended by the director somehow strikes the emotional buttons of the people. But then for all its cliched nature it shows the society as it is without any pretense. That should be definitely appreciated.
