Very well executed

Pretty Good

It is a performances centric movie

A Major Disappointment

This is the greatness of Tamil Movies. They try different things and think out of the box. When a director makes a movie about a person with multiple personality disorder and at the same time gives a socially relevant message then, he is a genius.Before i proceed further let me first declare that i am not a tamilian. I am aa Telugu speaking person who is in Delhi since last 8 years. Since i have seen Anniyan while i was doing my graduation in Chennai, I can duly say that this movie is one of its kind.The plot is very unique. The performances are mind blowing, The music is OK(Disgusting lyrics, by the way) and breath taking camera work.Vikram stands out. All three personalities have been acted with sense of conviction. The viewer would rarely doubt the credibility of Vikram in this movie. The Last scene of the film and the penultimate action sequence in the police lock up are the Higlights of the film.Sada is really beautiful and charming. She really looked like a traditional brahmin girl. Fullmarks to her even in songs where she does through a makeover.Prakash raj Is good. Vivek deserves a special mention, as he maintains the tempo of the movie with his usual but painstakingly funny comedy one/two liners.The area where the film loses is the action sequences. Come on. Are we indians so immature that we crave for such unrealistic action sequences. All Of them except the penultimate one are overdone and failto capture attention of the person watching the movie. A man beating up a whole lotta black belts in 15minutes and without getting hurt. If this was a VIJAYAKANTH movie, one would have understood, but when one comes across such nonsense in Shankar's movies, finds it really Disturbing.Anyways, the plot is truly mesmerizing with standout performance by Vikram. he is definitely one of the best actors in India today. (Hrithik, AAmir watch out... u have a surprise package in Vikram)

The movie is absolutely fantastic. One just has to switch off any logical thinking and enjoy every single aspect of the movie, every single scene, every song... But first things first. "Anniyan" has been the first movie in which I have seen Vikram. I must honestly say that there are very few chameleon-like actors in this world, but he is definitely one of them. Watching him act gives nothing but pleasure. The characters he portrays are so different from one another that I had problems believing it was the same person. Ambi was such a nut head. Really irritated me. Anniyan - uh, those noodles in front of the camera every time we've been given "Anniyan's perspective"... But my heart was stolen by Remo (...ramp walk Remo... ;) ). Sadha is beautiful. And she acts stupendously, but what really caught my attention was the way she moved and danced. In "Iyengaaru Veetu" she is so amazingly graceful... Now, the music - very good. 3 out of five songs are now on the list of my favourites, the other 2 are also very good. Filmmakers have made an excellent move by giving each character a specific style. And so Ambi, who is very up-tight and strict will have traditional lay out and Remo who's a "sexy model" { ;) } will have a more contemporary look. The music itself also reflects the distinction between them. Then there is "Adangkaka" but not wanting to give to much of the plot away, I'll just write that it's an energetic track - one of the parties' all time favourites (along with "Remo" and "Nokia"). The plot itself may not strike with originality, however the way the storyline is lead, the tiny details that the director put in there made me wonder "what's gonna happen next?". So, all things consider I give it a full 10. "Anniyan" is a movie to entertain - it's not to educate (although I know some people are trying to give it this function), it was made to entertain, to give fun and to leave the viewer with he's mouth open. With me it worked... More than once.

One of the biggest flaws in this movie concerns the same thing that Shankar actually got right during Boys. In Boys, 99% of the characters were new entrants and unknowns and were thus were very realistic and highly effective in their roles. However, in Anniyan, every villain, every common bad guy and every misc character were played by big leaguers who would have been familiar for the zillionth time. A coupla comedians play bad guys and are extremely ineffective in that role and difficult to take seriously. Thus the elements of shock normally present in a Shankar flick do not exist in Anniyan. The second biggest flaw is the overuse of really bad CGI, cheap gimmickry and too many references to the internet. Third, too many movies have been copied and the remakes of the scenes look utterly stupid. This movie has obviously been formulated and engineered to rake in money at the box office without actually offering anything amazing or worthy.

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.