Annaatthe Review: A totally underwhelming film that doesn’t even do justice to call it as Rajinikanth’s one man show

Cast: Rajinikanth, Keerthy Suresh, Nayantharan, Abhimanyu Singh
Music: D Imman
Direction: Siva

Siva is one of the top directors who can direct entertaining commercial films. The four films with Ajith and now the film with the Superstar Rajinikanth are the testimonials for his popular status. But Siva’s writing hasn’t worked for me consistently, film after film. His Tamil debut Siruthai with Karthi is one of my favourite masala films, following which he directed Ajith in Veeram. Veeram again worked for me. It was entertaining. Vedhalam and Vivegam were completely underwhelming. His previous venture, Viswasam, is his best work according to me.

If you are wondering why I am rating Siva’s filmography in Annatthe’s review, the film is literally an amalgamation of his previous works. Kaalaiyan (Rajinikanth) is the president to a group of villages, similar to Thookudurai in Viswasam. He has quite a few police cases for which he has to sign at a police station. He also finds a lawyer, Nayanthara’s character, to help him deal the cases similar to Santhnam’s character in Veeram. We also have a brother-sister relationship similar to Vedhalam and an antagonist similar to the one in Siruthai.

The similarity doesn’t stop at character level; it’s also in the writing. The entire second half is written similar to Viswasam. Kaalaiyan gets seperated from his sister, Tanga Meenakshi (Keerthy Suresh) who now is suffering in Kolkata. He helps her from the struggles without her knowledge. In Viswasam, the idea of Thookudurai helping her daughter when she has no clue that he is her father was emotionally rich. But the same antics did not work here. The poorly written two antagonists add to the agony.

The story until it moves to Kolkata is supposed to be a fun family drama, at least that’s what I think they wanted. But the comedy was insensitive at many places and the family emotions were melodramatic. The melodramatic feel is throughout the film. I would love to call this film Rajinikanth’s one man show, but sadly the film doesn’t do justice to the man’s efforts in his early 70s.

Verdict: A totally underwhelming film that doesn’t even do justice to call it as Rajinikanth’s one man show