Anniyan - no usual onion

Two days ago I went along with Ananth to watch Anniyan at Satyam cinemas.We went pretty early, say around 5 minutes before the show started and found to our utter dismay that the tickets were sold out!!! So we, being the bad guys we are, tried for the black ones and got them at Rs.100/- each.

By the by this is my first tamil movie review.

Basic Story: This movie is a mixture of 'Tell me your dreams' - a book by Sidney Sheldon, Identity and Seven(which I haven't watched as of yet, but know the story) + five really good songs by Harris Jayaraj + Shanker's giant-size portrayal of things + Vikram's bulky body.

When you enter the movie hall, to watch this movie, you don't want to miss anything thats going on-screen mainly because of Shanker's overwhelming nature of portrayal.Vikram plays the role of a down-to-earth, innocent, prim, well-disciplined, obviously single iyengar boy named 'Ramanujam'.But throughout the movie people find it easy to address him as 'Ambi'.So from now I too shall refer to this character as Ambi(since its extremely cumbresome to type out the other name).But somehow in the movie some people amusingly find it very covenient to refer to Ambi as 'Rules Ramanujam', which by some untold rule I won't be referring to hereafter.Sada, who as 'always' fails to form an impression on my mind as a babe, plays the character of 'Nandini', plays obviously Vikram's love interest.Ooops! Ambi's love interest.The most interesting of characters is Vivek, who plays Chari - a CB-CID cop who assists Prakashraj, his senior, obviously.Prakashraj is referred to as 'Sir' in the movie, so I don't know his character's name or may be I have failed to notice.The other characters I will tell you as we move.

The first few minutes try to make the viewer understand that Ambi is a very naive lawyer, who adheres to rules, is a well-conditioned boy from the neighbourhood of agraharam-like set up.Here Vikram's acting is good, but there is a little too much of deliberation on the way of talking, not the accent.But one must not say its bad; he has done better than all his predecessors in the iyengar's role.He somehow falls for his neighbour and childhood friend Nandini(Sada), who not so surprisngly is single till then.Somehow, as a sensible male, one feels sad for Ambi falling for Nandini.Then there is Kumari - a song that forms a lasting impression on the mind of the viewer, mainly for its melodious tune and Shankar Mahadevan's renderring of it and of course Harris Jeyaraj's music.After this however, the movie goes to show how Ambi is helplessly frustrated with the absence of decorum in the city.One cannot resist , but laugh when coming to think of Ambi's IQ as he realizes this obviousness when he's of say twenty six or so.He then finds a website, titled Anniyan.com, desperately trying to bring the movie title to significance.This website takes in complaints from people regarding the absence of righteousness in some particular person, solely on the basis of description of the user.The mysterious creator of the website, promises to see to it that the problem is solved by lynching the concerned person in a highly unusual way.

The first victim is found dead in some god-forsaken place by bulls.The murder is obviously done by Anniyan.com's creator Anniyan - the stranger in black.Immediately Sir and Chari rush to the place, dressed up as locals(probably to get a pulse of what people think, none of which is shown in the movie).There, they find a place where our Anniyan manages to write in tamil, the form of punishment he has given.God knows why he wants to write.Probably to end the movie as quick as possible, but all his efforts go in vain, as the movie takes a cool 3 and 1/2 hours.The words written are intriguing at first, as they aren't usual tamil words.The same thing happens to some two other victims.This is where Chari tries to dilute the seriousness with his one-liners.You can't help laughing, its really funny.The apparently confusing words are solved by Ambi, who solves them for Chari on his request.Ambi and Chari, by the way, are very close friends and many of their interludes are hilarious.


Ambi professes his love for Nandini by writing a very funny love letter, and she rejects it.Dumb girl.Has no sense of humour probably.She then explains that she doesn't love for his straight manners.She then meets a ramp model, Remo, who looks amazingly like Ambi.But at no point does Nandini's bloodshot brains tell her this similarity.She falls for his obvious whiz and charm.During all this time, Anniyan goes about murdering people, for their unpardonable lack of properness.Anniyan, too amazingly looks like Ambi and Remo.All three of them bear close semblance to actor Vikram.Somehow the director tries to confuse and promotes intrigue into our minds.

Very soon the director gives up and goes public about Ambi's split personality problem.Ambi has no knowledge about his two other alters.Sadly his two alters have knowledge about him.By this time Nadini understands the problem, somehow, and realizes that she can actually understand concepts, plus 5 songs are over and its about 3 hours.She now falls for Ambi in all entirety.By now the court takes notice of this case, and leaves this guy out as he is diagnosed with MPD.He is then sent to a hospital where he is treated for two years and comes out completely cured, apparently.

Alright I am tired of writing anymore of this, as you are of reading this post.The movie keeps you entertained, but fails to keep you glued, if you have knowledge of 'Tell me your Dreams' or 'Identity'.The songs are really good.Vivek's comedy is quite funny.For all the base the story had, Shanker has not made good use of the 26 Cr. budget.He could have completed it for less.But somehow, its a good entertainer for a tamil movie's class and quite understandably will be a hit as it caters to needs of the masses.The following is a justification why the movie will be a hit.

Movie Blues

Anniyan(in a characeristic hoarse voice): Dei Baadu..

Audience:aaaayyyy.... whistles blow and everyone's elated at having heard a 'bad word'.

Me:All most falls of the chair laughing, watching both.