A.L. Vijay who has tried wide range of genres, now comes with an action
entertainer roping in ‘Illayathalapathy’ Vijay as the lead for “Anna”
(Thalaivaa in Tamil). The director sets the premise very clearly in the
first ten minutes, that it is a story of a leader. The story is
fundamentally set in Mumbai of how a coolie-turned-leader (SatyaRaj)
fondly called as “Anna” protects the Telugu community living in Mumbai
and runs a parallel government. However, the movie shifts very quickly
to Australia where Anna’s son Vishwa (Vijay) runs a mineral water
company unaware of his dad’s businesses back in India. Meera (Amala
Paul) and Vishwa fall in love and come to India to meet Anna, and then
an incident takes place which makes Vishwa the next “Anna”. Though the
story offers nothing very new, it is the well-executed powerful scenes
which impress you. Especially, the video tape tracking sequence deserves
applause. The director gets the punches right.
The movie’s biggest enemy is its duration of 3 hours. The first half
takes its own sweet time to show us the love-track, taking the audience
time for granted. This sub-plot takes too much time than it deserves,
making the audience patience go for a toss. The main-plot starts only
after the interval. The length in the second half can be justified, but
since the first half has already played a spoilsport, the viewing
experience ends up being a test of patience.
Vijay gives a controlled and decent performance and got a good
opportunity to showcase his dancing skills. He was convincing as both
Vishwa and Vishwa Bhai. Satya Raj was perfect and Ponvannan excelled as
his brother. Abhimanyu Sigh as the antagonist suited the role. Amala
Paul was good and has an interesting scene. Santhanam provides some
comic relief.
Couple of songs composed by G.V.Prakash is good and the background score
is neat. Cinematography was decent. The editor deserves bouquets for
tackling some scenes very well, and brickbats for not chopping the much
unnecessary footage.
To sum it up, Anna could have been a great action entertainer, but ends
up as an aboveaverage flick, thanks to the long duration which plays a
powerful villain than Abhimanyu Singh.
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