Note to readers:
It's hard to get an objective review of a Bollywood movie online, because most Bollywood movie reviewers (from Zulm.net or http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk) are Indian. Indians either hate Bollywood movies or they love Bollywood movies. There is no in between, so it's impossible to get an objective review anywhere. This is why I, American White Man, will briefly review the ANNIYAN movie/DVD.

I had been in a phase of watching Hindi Bollywood movies and I can't stand watching them anymore, because they make crap after crap. If we are lucky, there is at least one good Bollywood film a year. Not an amazing film, not a great film, just a 3-star good film, such as BLACK this year. That's if we are lucky out of the thousands of low quality Bollywood films made in India per year. Whenever I get fed up to Bollywood movies, I have no choice but to turn to Tamilwood films and I'm usually satisfied in comparison to Bollywood Hindi crap. All the Tamil films I've seen have been satisfying in comparison to Bollywood crap, such as The Terrorist, Khakka Khakka, Kannathil Muthamittal, BOYS, and now ANNIYAN.

FILM QUALITY FOR INDIANS: 9 out of 10 Stars
ANNIYAN is a pretty good film for India standards. Shankar is the only slightly different and creative director in Bollywood/Tamilwood out of all the other worthless directors. He may be the only one in the Bollywood/Tamilwood world that produces polished films, not amateurish films. In ANNIYAN, I like his criticism of India's lack of quality in all degrees and his critisicm of people's behavior in general. India is a prime example of bad taste and poor quality. Shankar is aware of this fact and tries to show it in his films. The director has balls for having a character kill people for reasons that people don't usually get killed for. It's very idealistic. People are responsible for the way the world is - not the government. Usually, the trend is to complain about the media or the government, but actually it's all the peoples fault. So I liked how Shankar made individual people suffer for being unethical passive humans. It's a good statement. I never saw Shankar's INDIAN, so maybe that's why I enjoyed ANNIYAN more than other people since I heard that his statement in this movie is a rehashing of what he did in INDIAN.
ANNIYAN has some pretty good choreographed fight scenes. I was a little worried in the first one when Rules is getting beat up by the Brake Company gang, since it was a typical Bollywood cheesy gangbang fight. But once he turned to badass, that choreographed fight scene was awsome coming from an Indian movie.
So overall, this is an excellent quality movie made by a Tamil director for Indians.


FILM QUALITY FOR NON-INDIANS (Rest of the world): 7.5 out of 10 Stars
Shankar's got issues with India, but for some reason, I can't believe that he is not aware of the cheese romance factor that plagues Bollywood. BOLLYWOOD DIRECTORS LISTEN UP: The male leads acting like desperate nice shy psychopaths out of a Shakespeare play or male leads acting like cool, stylish, flamboyant, sexist, stalkers is not the way normal men are. I know it's a movie, but the romance stories have got to take a more realistic direction already. It is not attractive for the man to act desperate/nice and expect girl to fall in love. And in the other extreme, Bollywood portrays the confident male leads as pushy, obnoxious, aggresive, sexist flamboyant. This is not attractive too. Bollywood romance movies are created from the fantasy world of male geek minds. Let women write the romance storyline already. So in ANNIYAN, im not sure if Shankar is criticising the unrealistic way men act in Bollywood movies or if he actually sees that as normal. So, Im tired of seeing that same old shit and anyone seeing this from another country is going to think that element is some poorly written cheesy shit.
The action scenes are not bad for a Western movie - they could have been polished better, such as the wire work.... and they should have hired a Hong Kong action choreographer already instead of copying direct scenes from the Matrix movies. Are Chinese action choreographers that hard to get? BOLLYWOOD, Buy one for your movie already!! Out of sync sounding gangbang fight scenes should not be allowed ever again in a Bollywood film.
But other than that, ANNIYAN moves along at an entertaining pace and is not boring at all and doesn't have much filler as other Bollywood movies. And the story is quite interesting because the bad-ass character kills people we all dream of being killed. As I watch this movie now, it makes me think of this character killing irresponsable corporation bosses and people in the Bush administration. It's like the bad-ass character was inspired by Michael Moore and took action into his own hands in an extreme way. ANNIYAN is similar yet ten times better than Hollywood's THE PUNISHER.


The AYNGARAN DVD of ANNIYAN is pretty good! The anamorphic video quality and the Tamil DD 5.1/DTS audio is very nice. It has scratches and such, but who cares? It's an Indian DVD. Why would the DVD not be scratched? And the audio rocks as usual, with some wierd sound issues throughout the movie, but not enough to be a big deal or ruin the experience of hearing the movie. The English subtitles were good as well.


Overall, Shankar is the man and he made another highly entertaining movie with ANNIYAN. The only ones involved in India cinema that matter are still Shankar, Gurinder Chadha, Farah Khan, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Mira Nair, and A. R. Rahman. Just six people, unfortunately!


FILM VALUE: 8
DVD VIDEO: 8
DVD AUDIO: 8
EXTRAS: 2
OVERALL: 7.5 for non-Indians and 9 for Indians

yes indeed, an american white man is the only possible source of an objective review of an indian movie (if being objective is even possible...). these are films we're talking about, not frickin' math.

also, your Indian cinema hall of fame is suspect to say the least.

and why one rating for indians, and another for non-Indians? is it because Indians would understand the movie more than a non-Indian and hence give the movie a higher rating? Or is it because Indians are incabable of being "objective" like you?

Or is it cos I is black?

Ali

I'd like to see a similar review by a white Indian.

Well the problem is every tamil movie is the same. Imagine you are watching Anniyan acted by different actors/actress with different music and different technicians, then you will get bored.

Tamil movies, since the absense of Rajni in the mail TMI, is a very simple formula - a normal man, standing against an "abnormal" man. The abnormal man may be a politician, or a "rowdy" or a mafia or a cop or in case of anniyan "society" - and he wins the race.

Ofcourse some of the movies listed here (terrorist, khakka khakka, KM) are definitely different and should be applauded, but boys fall into another category created by recent directors - showing the vulgar side of a teenager and JUSTIFYING it.

Ofcourse, I agree that bollywood is a bigger crap, but having said that, tamil movies are in no way falling behind bollywood when making "crap" movies.

From TFM in recent past, I would say Autograph, Kadhal and few others (may be two / year - instead of 1/year from bollywood) are different movie than the usual story.

BTW, Gentlement, Mudhalvan, Indian, Anniyan and Ramana (not directed by Shankar surprisingly) are all same movies.

What I cant understand is that in all these movies near the climax, they show a little flashback, that justifies the act of the hero!

Going back to anniyan

OVERALL: 7.5 for non-Indians (as rated by you)
9 for Indians
5 for people who already watched Indian.

The films aren't the same, they just have similar themes, and production values. The actual storylines is different.

Also the actor/hero/heroine, has to justify thier violent actions to meet with the requirements of the strict censor board. The film-makers should use different story-telling methods instead of using the crappy flashback techniques.

word!

THEON,

First off, I'm talking about contemporary Bollywood movies. Im not talking about the past when they did make some decent movies (pre-1980s). So what India cinema hall of fame are you talking about. I have seen everything post-1995....

Find me one objective review of a Bollywood movie (not a non-Bollywood film) by an Indian online. I've looked and the majority of them are not objective, I'm sorry to say. Do you even look? Am I lying by saying that the good reviewed Bollywood movies online are reviewed by Indians?

The positive reviews you may find online are not objective. The only honest review of a Bollywood movie is a negative review. The reviews that I have found online written by the website reviewers and by the average consumer that writes their own are not objective. "4 star blockbuster! Very good family movie! Perfect movie." And i'm sorry to say that whatever new Bollywood movie they are talking about is not even a 3 star movie. It may be entertaining but it is an amatuerish mess of a film, which cannot be considered good by non-Indians. There is no good new Bollywood movie. They certainly are played everywhere in the world, but that doesn't make them good movies. They suck! If there is only one good Bollywood movie a year (I'm not even talking an Oscar-type movie), I'm talking about a plain old 3-star movie - it means that Bollywood movie all suck. And if you see a positive review of one - it's not an objective one. And guess what? If it is a positive review, it's by an Indian reviewer...This is why I said White American, because a typical Bollywood film is not supposed to be judged by non-Indians.

My comments aren't politically correct, but don't play dumb, because that's the way it is in Bollywood. It's nowhere in the same league as Hollywood or any other film industry from other countries. There is no other film industry in the world that churns out crap after crap. None at all! Hollywood, Europe, South America, Japan, China, Thailand, etc. produce crap too, but they produce good movies and great movies as well...There are no good movies or great movies that come from Bollywood. There are great films that come out of India which aren't Bollywood films, but that's not the topic here...That's no excuse to say "Bollywood films are created in a way that are supposed to be bad or cheesy." No way. Any genre of film is supposed to be good. There is no excuse for low quality piece of crap films.

That is the whole point of Shankar' ANNIYAN. His main point is how can India for the past 50 years be producing crap low quality products? He gave an example with Singapore and Japan how they were devestated and at the lowest of the low, and now those two countries are at the top.

The only reasonably good movies from Bollywood have been Black, Devdas, Mission Kashmir, and Fiza...Don't even mention COMPANY - This movie, in the eyes of non-Indian critics, is a piece of crap amatuerish B-movie. Dil Chahta Hai, Kal Ho Na Ho, Main Hoon Na are all entertaining films too but they are not good films...They are only a bit better than shit because they are polished, well-made and are entertaining in comparison to the usual shit...

I am a lurker but I just had to respond to this. I am neither Indian nor a White American Male so that must make me the most objective of all objective people in the world.

You are making all these statements and I wonder if you've actually done any research. You say Indians only give good reviews and I show you India FM which almost never reviews higher than 3/5 stars.

You say Non-Indians don't give good reviews but Roger Ebert who happens to be a respected White American Male film critic raved about Taal(a post 1995 movie) on his show and recommends Bollywood movies from Lagaan to Earth (admittedly less Bollywood). Heck, they even gave Bride and Prejudice two thumbs up... and that movie is worse than many proper Bollywood movies.

You claim to do research but if you did, you'd also see that there are many (positive) reviews written in the New York Times.

Although I must say that it makes more sense to find positive reviews written by Indians as it is the Indian movie industry - it's simply the law of averages. And if you go to many Bollywood sites, you'd find people like you and I who are not Indian but watch Bollywood movies. Some even rave about them more than Indians themselves. So does that mean they are not objective? After all, they've been exposed to other film industries.

But the funniest thing about your post is you've seen everything post-1995 and they all suck. And you say it in such a condescending way that I am a little baffled. Hence, I really wonder why you keep watching. Wouldn't the logical thing be to stop watching since you know it will be a complete waste of time? I don't get it.

I honestly don't see why you think your reviews should carry any more weight because of your ethnicity. Some people hate sci fi while others can't even manage to watch a romantic flick. It doesn't mean that one is more objective than the other, it could be a matter of taste.

oooo controversial

Ali

toddly6666,

when i referred to your "Indian cinema hall of fame" i was speaking about your list of the "only ones involved in Indian cinema who matter". i thought you included some questionable names (Shankar, Gurinder Chadha) and left out quite a few names like Gowarikar and Farhan Akhtar.

i agree that there is a lack of good reviews and reviewers of Bollywood films. however, i think your search for "objective" reviews is futile since objectivity does not exist. and you're fooling yourself even more by thinking you can provide an objective review just because you are not Indian.

you say "The only honest review of a Bollywood movie is a negative review" but give Anniyan 7.5/10. is your review honest?

i also agree that Bollywood makes a lot of poor movies (imo). however, i realize that the majority of Bollywood films are not made for me or white American males. this fact is likely to influence whether or not i find a movie "good". you don't seem to take audience into account. what is "good" to you, is not neccesarily what is "good" to the intended audience.

that's it for now...

THEON, my bad, I thought you were talking about Bollywood movies in general....well, I'm not too impressed by those two directors, Gowarikar and Farhan Akhtar. One movie was okay and nominated by Oscars (Lagaan), bu and the other movie Dil Chata Hai, I already mentioned - it's a movie important for the new Indian generation but to the outside world it's nothing special. Those two directors are one-hit wonders - There other movies such as Swades, Lakshya, Pehla Nasha, Baazi are not impressive movies.

I know where you are going with the idea of "good" is obscure. These movies are entertaining yes, but they are not good. In India, the masses might have never seen Matrix Reloaded or any of the other western movies that Bollywood has copied, so yes, they will think it's amazing and good. But if they haven't seen anything else besides their own Indian movies, so they have nothing to compare it too - they will appreciate what they get. But in the rest of the world, we know that there are professionally-made. epic to indie, cheap to expensive movies with good story, good acting, good filmography, touching and emotional and intense all in one. This is a good movie. A Bollywood movie is not good at all.

I gave ANNIYAN 7.5 out of 10 - that's like a "C". A "C" grade is a step up from endless "F"s and "D minuses"....I never said it was a good movie - I said it was a pretty good movie for Indian standards. And it's overall a satisfying and extremely entertaining Tamil movie. Shankar is a good director because he tries to do something different from the usual mass of crap...

I forgot to mention that the acting in ANNIYAN was pretty bad. But it's normal to act like unrealistic bafoons in Bollywood movies, so it's pointless to take points away from that. If you read reviews online of ANNIYAN, the people are saying that the actors were excellent. Just because someone can have different characters such as Annniyan/Rules/Roma and the cop character, it doesnt mean it's good acting. I don't even notice it anymore because that's typical in a Bollywood movie. 'Chiyaan' Vikram is definitely more easy to watch than Sharuk Khan. But he ain't no Sanjay Dutt or Amitabh Bachchan ....

Exactly. Speically with Annian and the worst BGM by HJ for flash-back (Lolly Lolly ... what a shame? I know he copies ARR, so it would be easy to lift from one of ARR-Shankar movie, if not alteast he should copy from IR or Deva!) it makes me vomit. This is the part of Anniyan that I can watch anymore.

Also I started watching Chanakya (TV Serial in Sanskirt) and after watching this, I can comfortably say that Shankar is hooked up into Chanakya - all his movies are against corruption, and specifically a brahmin , facing against a corrupt goventment.

i disagree that Swades and Lakshya were not impressive. and when a movie is nominated for an Oscar, it's probably better than "okay".



you seem to paint a picture of India having ignorant masses which will love any crap that is thrown at them, and if only they are exposed to the light of Western Cinema, they will rid their homes of pictures of Shah Rukh Khan and replace them with those of Keanu Reeves. this sounds like something that would come out an 18th century British missionary (if only the ignorant Hindus see the light of Christianity, they will leave their religion and come to the faith). please, give Indians a little more credit/respect.



a 7.5 is closer to a "B". a "C" is 6.5.

toddly6666, i think you need to realize that there are other perpectives about what constitutes a "good" film beyond your own limited perspective. it seems too harsh to dismiss the entire cinema of a sixth of the world as "all crap".

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ali and Rita for not taking this Toddly-guy seriously.