Annakodi

My review: Annakodi

 Legends know when to retire with honour. But when narcissism gets into the center stage they tend to over stay without realizing the amount of damage they are doing to their own reputation and honour. Balachander learnt it the hard way with his "Poi" ending up as a bigger disaster than his previous dud "Parthale Paravasam". Thankfully he retired graciously after that. Bharathiraja, the other "big B" of Tamil cinema has not learnt it even after 7 continuous flops with every movie being worse than the previous one. His latest offering "Annakodi" is his worst by mile and thankfully better sense should prevail and make him realize of his folly. 

"Annakodi" is banal even by 80's standards with no focus whatsoever on what the movie is all about. Is it about the caste divide in the south? Is it a tragic love story ? Is it a revenge drama ? None of these questions can be satisfactorily answered even after watching this movie. Screenplay is snail paced with scenes jumping from nowhere and going nowhere, sudden cuts of flashback, poorly executed CG shots suddenly springing out of nowhere, it is a big time head ache. If one is able to sit through the first half and brave enough to come back to watch the second half then he must be one of the most patient of men around. 

It is a case of blatant exploitation of the young talent in the name of his past deeds and stature by Bharathiraja. Especially the manner in which he has showcased his female actors is despicable and not in keeping with the respect his name begets. Heart goes to the poor naive actors who might have signed this project by the virtue of the name of the director not knowing the futility of the same.    

Lakhman Narayanan looks a very average actor who seems to have strictly done what he was shown to do. Karthika Nair has given her full effort in a poorly written role. She does what Bharathiraja's heroines have been doing since time immemorial, staring vacantly at the sky, give portfolio shots by the side of flowers, smiling and crying in close-up and many such routines of his. Manoj's characterization is the clinching evidence of how much deterioration the cognition of the great man is going through. What was pathetic characterization made worse by a poor actor in Manoj.

 Others in the cast either overact or amateurs who are poorly handled by the director. It has been a very long time since one has witnessed actors of such low caliber in Tamil cinema. Many of the young directors nowadays use many local people and novices in their movie but the amount of acting that they extract from them is astonishing. When compared to that director here has taken the easy route of allowing them to do what comes to them. May be because of age or due to the overconfidence that people would accept whatever is dished to them. 

Less said about the technical details of the movie the better. Considering the quality with which even the short films are made these days with shoestring budget "Annakodi" is far from what one can call contemporary. One can't help but get a feeling of watching a poorly executed amateurish street play. 

On the whole, "Annakodi" is yet another disaster from the great man. A rude awakening of sorts for him that it is time to take rest.

Bottomline: Fall of a legend. 

1/5