Anniyan

Shankar and Vikram have done a fantastic job. Director Shankar is turning into a professional high-quality perfectionist. Actor Vikram, charged with a National award for Best Actor (2004) is on a roll. His performance is classy and comparable to many great actors of Tamil cinema.

Anniyan is definitely worth watching at least once. Forget about the critics who list past movies from which various aspects of Anniyan (like concept, theme, stunts, music) was inspired (or copied). It is easier to make the original than to make a copy as the original serves as a hard benchmark. It is hard to replicate something while maintaining audience interest. Shankar does this job to a more-than-satisfying extent.

Besides, when great directors like Steven Spielberg copy past movies (War of the worlds) with the confidence of providing the viewers something worthwhile to watch, I don't see anything wrong in Shankar's Anniyan. Yet, Anniyan is NOT a complete copy and it is definitely MORE than the sum of its parts.

Anniyan has stunts that were never before seen in any Tamil movie. Shankar has provided the opportunity to the (uneducated mass of) Tamil audience of watching world-class stunts in a movie that they can understand (as against most Hollywood flicks that have the action but make no sense to them). So what, if it has been copied? Matrix Reloaded being largely mystifying and unexplained, even to most native-English speakers, could not justify to the (masses of the) Tamil audience as to why all the action exists!!??. But that is not the case with Anniyan.

To sum it all up, Anniyan is what a movie should really be. A classy entertainer. Good songs, great cinematography, wonderful (although sometimes unbelievable) stunts, great acting performance, nice comedy and classic direction. Watch the movie without prejudice and be entertained.

If you do not know Tamil (just like I don't) then watch the DVD version of ANNIYAN with subtitles (not the Hindi version). You will be proud to find that the best movies in the world are Indian movies (I will learn Tamil just to watch its movies). Roles were challenging but acting/performance was great too. Direction qualifies for a new degree after good better and best. Comedy has good timing and morals delivered are clear. I have been humming the songs specially - Iyengar Vittu Adege with out really knowing what the lyrics means. Actions were well shown and well place in the movie. The scenes were so well placed. Music was super. This is a art, classic, action, science, romance, thriller, drama. A movie does not get better than this.

anniyan...the story that reminds me of my own frustrations; a masterpiece to the core reflecting the need for Indian public to think ( at least ) of their basic responsibilities as citizens; not anticipating any major change in their behaviors though. a must watch for every Indian., and in my opinion it rightly deserves the national award for both movie & it's hero. have seen the movie 6 times till now... shankar sir is really great and vikram...too good to be loved by one and all for his histrionics.i always wondered what if god is physically present among us punishing the wrong-doers..the subject of the movie falls in this line..in all of us, if we closely observe, there's an intrinsic desire to be like someone or be someone at different points in our day-to-day life...the protagonist arises from one of this inner manifestations of the base character which is obviously meek like scores of us..you can't expect a subject like this hitting the Indian screens, thanks for the director for taking up a bold risk who has delivered a punch of entertainment along with his greatest asset..that is story-telling.in this movie you will find yourself, the hell, and even the road to heaven too;

I can't believe I'm writing a review for a movie this bad. I know better than to expect good movies from the Tamil film industry these days, but this one came as a shocker nevertheless. I don't remember the last half-decent movie I saw that came from home - probably Autograph. It's a shame: the same industry that produced Kadhalikka Neramillai, Nayagan, Mouna Ragam...but I digress.

What hurts me most is hypocrisy in such *message* movies. I will eat the humble pie if anything changes in India after Shankar makes a million of these movies a million times over. Anniyan was just a fool-proof formula masquerading as a film that had a social message. Try telling someone else that Shankar cares about anything except for the commercial success of his movies.

And for heaven's sake, why can't we be original? There's one very interesting forum topic here that's discussing the number of English movies this was a rip-off from. I'm sure the quiz-masters are getting their notepads ready for a mega question: play a couple of scenes and then ask the contestants to name all the original movies that 'inspired' those scenes.

Don't even let me get started on the song lyrics... Now that I've berated it enough, let me explain why I gave it the three stars that I did. Song visualisations. Vivek's comedy (a *big* saving grace - 2 stars).

I'm not going to ask you not to watch it. You are either going to think I'm stupid, or that I watch only Bergman, Fellini, Renoir and Eisenstein to be saying such ridiculous things. So, go ahead by all means. And God bless our country if such movies are going to change it.

My experiences with Bollywood movies are quite good. Although I only watched the ones that had a higher rating. So it's normal that they are good.

This movie is somewhat different from the other movies I've watched. Those were more comedy's. This movie also his a comedy side. But it's much more than that. It's much more complex than a comedy. The other personality's from Ambi are very interesting. Anniyan and Remo. Anniyan is his dark side and Remo his romantic side. I won't tell you any more. Because if you like to see something different from India watch this.

Good luck with finding it! I'm lucky I had the opportunity to watch this movie.