VISITOR COLUMN

Story: Mumbai la Raju Bhaai Yaaru Theriyumae? Deva na yaaru theriyumae? Yes. You guessed it right. It is a story similar to Baasha & Thalapathy. Does Suriya play dual role or is it singe role as you guessed it from the trailer? Check it out in theaters.

Anjaan – It is one of the movies which was promoted very aggressively in recent times. For the first time in Tamil Cinema history, there was even a success meet conducted for the success of the teaser (crossing 1.2 million views in short time). Movie releases with record number of 37 screens in Chennai, more than 500 theaters in Tamil Nadu & 1400 theaters all over the world (Tamil & Telugu version). Anjaan will be the first South Indian Film to be released in digital worldwide (no physical print), a step taken towards stopping piracy. Teaser created good expectation for the movie and received positive response. But, the trailer of the movie received mixed response and most of the people felt that the story line may be similar to one and only Superstar’s Baashha. Ajith & Vijayakanth have done similar roles in the movie ‘’Jana’ & ‘Gajendara’ respectively. Has Suriya too tried the same or is it completely different commercial entertainer? Let us see whether this movie will satisfy only hardcore Suriya fans or even Common Man in this review.

Suriya – He is one of the very few actors in Tamil Cinema, who has good female followers & family audience. It would be better for him, if he concentrates on good script oriented movies, rather than larger than life hero movies. Having said this, he has done complete justice to both his characterizations – Stylish Raju Bhai & innocent Krishna. He has shown good variation for both the characters and has really done well in the action scenes.

Samantha – She has tried very glamorous costumes for the first time in Tamil Cinema. Her role is similar to usual commercial movie heroines, loving the Don, without any reason.

Vidyut Jammwal – After playing villain roles in the Vijay & Ajith movies, Vidyut Jammwal joins hands with Suriya and has played the role of his friend in this movie. His characterization and lip sync do complete injustice to this handsome looking guy. All the north Indian supporting actors roles and their lip sync will give the audience the feeling of watching a dubbed movie.

Soori – He has few scenes in the movie as taxi driver and makes audience laugh in a scene or two(pani puri shop keeper or taxi driver are the usual roles for comedians in Mumbai based don movies)

Brahmanandam – He appears in a scene in the movie to cover the Telugu audience.

Yuvan Shank Raja – ‘’Bang Bang” & “Ek Do Theen” promoted aggressively in TV Channels were the two good songs in the movie. Other songs sound average. But, his BGM definitely tries to add more value to the buildup scenes.

Cinematographer Santosh Sivan – He has won 5 National Film Awards as a Cinematographer & has given his best in this movie too.

Editor Anthony – Movie runs for 170 minutes (First Half – 88 minutes & Second Half – 82 minutes). Even, if the movie is edited for 120 minutes, it would have not impacted the movie, as lots of scenes and songs were absolutely unnecessary.

Director Lingusamy – As a producer, he is the most successful one in 2014 with 3 Hits (Goli Soda, Manjapai & Sathuranga Vettai). He has given good commercial entertainers such as Run, Sandakozhi, Paiyaa as a director. But, he couldn’t deliver his best, while taking commercial movies with big stars such as Ajith (Ji) & Vikram (Bheema) and the list continues. Each and every twist in the movie, including the interval block is easily predictable as none of the scenes are new. Even a person, who doesn’t know Tamil and have watched 5 commercial movies, will identify the interval twist from the trailer itself. There were lots of scenes which were completely unnecessary for the script. Suriya & Samantha dancing for various Hindi songs will even test the patience of Suriya fans.

Overall, Stylish Suriya + Very Glamorous Samantha + Wonderful Yuvan’s BGM + Excellent Cinematography gets completely overshadowed by the poor script & very slow screenplay.

Anjaan would have been a blockbuster if it was released before Baasha in 1990’s, when this DON concept was new to Tamil Cinema.

Rating of this movie by Common Man – 1.5 / 5