Reviewer's Summary - Average
Language: Tamil
Year: 1992
Actors: Rajnikant, Sarathbabu, Radha Ravi, Khushboo
Director: Suresh Krishna
Producer: Rajam Balachander, Pushpa Kandaswamy
Music: Deva
Lyrics: Vairamuthu
Screenplay: Suresh Krishna
When a popular actor like Rajnikant stars in a zany movie like Annamalai, it's enormously disheartening.
Without a good script, even a Brando is a mere prop in a movie. The same Marlon Brando - who delighted us in On the Waterfront and Streetcar Named Desire - seemed weird in Last Tango in Paris.
So too with Annamalai, where Rajnikant is trapped in an asinine script.
Annamalai breaks no new ground on the story front. It hews to the hackneyed, unoriginal line of how two close friends fall apart and come together in the end, after much trials and tribulations. But it's the audience that really has to endure the severe trials and tribulations inherent in such banal themes.
Annamalai is the eponymous story of two close friends Annamalai (Rajnikant) and Ashok (Sarathbabu). Annamalai is a milkman with a large herd of cows and a big piece of desired land in the heart of Madras (now Chennai) while Ashok is the rich son of a scheming hotelier. Their different ranks in the social hierarchy does not prevent a close bond arising between the two youngsters.
The close friendship endures even as they grow up until that fateful day.
In a moment of anger, Annamalai slaps Ashok's father one day. An incensed Ashok orders the demolition of Annamalai's house, dear to Annamalai's mother. The friends part ways but not before Annamalai vows that he'll become a bigger hotelier and bring Ashok's family to the streets.
There is not much to complain in the acting department - Rajnikant, Sarathbabu, Khushboo and the others do their jobs with the required elan. A lesser cast would have been a disaster for the movie. It's Annamalai's trite story that's the biggest let down.
The songs are nothing to write home about. Our favorites were Annamalai Annamalai and Vanthenda Paalkaran. - Copyright SearchIndia.com.
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