Anniyan
(Tamil)

Director: Shankar
Cast:
Vikram
Vivek
Sada
Nedumudi Venu
Stunt Choreography: Peter Hyne
My first impression after the movie was “Holy Macaroni! How the heck did Shankar pull off this movie for 30 crores ?†Yes, the movie does have the typical Tamil style larger than life elements and some take-offs from Hollywood (esp fight scenes), but apart from that the movie is a ONE GREAT ACTION THRILLER!!! When I saw Dhoom (Hindi) I thought it was one of the best executed thrillers in Indian cinema (it still is.) But Anniyan changed that !. The acting of Vikram is simply amazing. He truly is a great actor of Tamil.

A faint outline of the story will be that Amby (Vikram) is a Brahmin who lives so righteously and according to the law that he cannot stand people breaking even the lightest of laws. He tries to bring the people to justice under the law but fails a lot of times. But things change when the night falls this simple man turns into Anniyan- a being with supernatural abilites who has only one aim- that is to punish the wrong-doers. Amby when turned down by his lover (Sadha), transform into Remo a super-cool dude who is destined to win the lady’s heart.

The action sequences are choreographed by the great Peter Hyne. It is amazing. They have even tried to reconstruct the Agent Smith-Neo fight scene into an Anniyan-Martial arts trainees fight at the Martial arts academy. The re-creation is not as bad as I thought. The 360 degree bullet-time shots were also not bad. As far as acting is concerned Vikram is just tremendous ! The multiple personality transformations in Amby is done with ease by Vikram. The songs has nothing to brag about. They could have done it better.

But one low point about the film is you ask me is that the story should have had more depth to it. At times the story-line looses its importance and kind of tries to question the audience’s intelligence. And also they could have managed not to just copy the entire action sequence from Matrix. They could have done something more “original†If they had looked into these matters the film could have been legendary! And as far as Shankar is concerned he is repeating the his old story line again but this time its done with more style.
The film is certainly worth a watch!