After his previous winner “Chittiram Pesudhadi”, Mysskin is back with “Anjaathey” starring Prasanna and Naren. With Prasanna in a never-seen-before role, the film was one of the films to be watched out for. So, here I am, writing my thoughts and opinions on the film.

The plot of the film is fairly simple. Krupa and Sathya are two friends who are headed towards different lives. By a small inciting incident blown over, their fates take a U-turn and their lives proceed unexpectedly, thanks to Daya. What follows is the realization of their lives by the friends and the moral questions that surround them. With the exception of the slightly overlong climax and about 2-3 overdone scenes containing stereotype situations (M. S. Bhaskar cursing his son, Sathya, for one), the flick boasts of uninterrupted and fast screenplay.

Naren is the pick of all the performances and is all set to set a firm foot in Kollywood. The scene where he realizes the rights and privileges of a policeman oozes with good performance. Prasanna’s portrayal of an eccentric but meticulous baddie with his own set of idiosyncrasies is commendable but not very memorable. Though Pandiyarajan remains for almost the whole movie, he seems to be there only as a comic relief.

Not only Mysskin’s name seems to be Russian, but his techniques too. The extreme close-ups and the montage flow of action in the film are reminiscent of the pre-war soviet cinema. The brilliant use of non-diegetic sound for almost the whole climax provides the grandeur a showdown must have. The cinematography of the film is a very strong point. However, the unrestrained use of free-cam becomes distracting at times. Also, the experimental rapid cutting during the early part of the film does no good to the film. Though the film is very racy through out, it is almost completely humourless. The film cries for relief in the first half with even the costumes and the lighting being dark. The dialogues would have been hard-hitting only if it were not mixed with English in a tasteless manner. The background score has aided the movie big time, except for some obvious emotional manipulation.

The film could have avoided the love track completely, but how else will the director push in one more song?. And where was Krupa’s sanity and composure (that he maintains when he is with Daya) when he failed the IPS test?. All said, the film certainly tells us three things: 1. Naren is here to stay, 2. Mysskin is a bankable director and 3. Prasanna can do more than run around trees and can say more than “Kudunga aunty, naa bag-a thookittu varen…”!

Verdict: