Annaatthe – My (late) Flash Review!

Annaatthe showed up on Netflix this week and finally caught up with the film yesterday and here’s my take.

• One word catchy title – Check
• High to Low to High – story line (similar to Riches to Rags to Riches template) – Check
• Nayanthara in the cast – Check
• Multi star cast with too many frivolous characters just to fill the screen – Check
• Non Tamil speaking villains – Check
• A comedian character as Rajini’s companion – Check
• Nostalgic Rajini title card – Check
• Mass Rajini entry scene – Check
• Title song with SPB – Check
• Slow mo shots of Rajini – Check
• Low angle shots of Rajini talking to the camera – Check
• Punch dialogues – Check
• Over the top make up for Rajini to cover his ageing – Check
• Gravity defying action sequences – Check
• Rajini in silhouette with fire in the background – Check
• Nostalgia from old Rajini movies – Check

Where is the story?  Director Siva sits to make a film with Rajini and ticks off all the above boxes as is the case with the recent directors who get a chance to make a film with Rajini but completely misses out on an interesting story line which is what holds any film at the end.

So we get a film where the viewers are taken through a torturous journey from a village in TN where Rajini is the king to Kolkata where he has to fight off the villains all for “thangachi paasam”. Yawn.

In some films even if the content is bad, you could still watch it for the form or for its making. Annaatthe doesn’t give that possibility also. The film suffers from bad making. Characters have no characterisation. Time lines of events are bizarre. The film opens with tacky and amateurish cards about news reports. A short film maker does a better job of this these days. In most of the scenes Rajini’s dubbing is off sync and his voice falters.  In the only duet song between Rajini and Nayanthara, you could make out that the songs have been shot with Green mats instead of On location. Imman blasts off our ears with a loud back ground score though I must add that he has done a good job with the songs which are all catchy.  Don’t even go to the writing which is in parts cringe worthy.

Annaatthe as a film does complete injustice to the countless fans of Rajini who repose faith in him repeatedly and show up First Day First Show for his films in spite of his last few average films. It’s high time he makes wiser choices of the scripts he backs just for these faceless fans.

Few lines in the opening song go like this:

Annaatthe pesuna stylu, Annaatthe paaduna stylu, Annaatthe aaduna kondaattam kondaattam thaan

Annaatthe maasu ke… bossu, Annaatthe walking’ e race’u, Annaatthe modhuna pattaasu pattaasu thaan…

I thought these lines were supposed to convey the essence of Rajini’s character in the film. After watching the film, I realise that these lines are the film itself.  There’s nothing more to it.