A.L. Vijay who has tried wide range of genres, now comes with an action entertainer roping in ‘Illayathalapathy’ Vijay as the lead for “Anna” (Thalaivaa in Tamil). The director sets the premise very clearly in the first ten minutes, that it is a story of a leader. The story is fundamentally set in Mumbai of how a coolie-turned-leader (SatyaRaj) fondly called as “Anna” protects the Telugu community living in Mumbai and runs a parallel government. However, the movie shifts very quickly to Australia where Anna’s son Vishwa (Vijay) runs a mineral water company unaware of his dad’s businesses back in India. Meera (Amala Paul) and Vishwa fall in love and come to India to meet Anna, and then an incident takes place which makes Vishwa the next “Anna”. Though the story offers nothing very new, it is the well-executed powerful scenes which impress you. Especially, the video tape tracking sequence deserves applause. The director gets the punches right.
The movie’s biggest enemy is its duration of 3 hours. The first half takes its own sweet time to show us the love-track, taking the audience time for granted. This sub-plot takes too much time than it deserves, making the audience patience go for a toss. The main-plot starts only after the interval. The length in the second half can be justified, but since the first half has already played a spoilsport, the viewing experience ends up being a test of patience.
Vijay gives a controlled and decent performance and got a good opportunity to showcase his dancing skills. He was convincing as both Vishwa and Vishwa Bhai. Satya Raj was perfect and Ponvannan excelled as his brother. Abhimanyu Sigh as the antagonist suited the role. Amala Paul was good and has an interesting scene. Santhanam provides some comic relief.
Couple of songs composed by G.V.Prakash is good and the background score is neat. Cinematography was decent. The editor deserves bouquets for tackling some scenes very well, and brickbats for not chopping the much unnecessary footage.
To sum it up, Anna could have been a great action entertainer, but ends up as an aboveaverage flick, thanks to the long duration which plays a powerful villain than Abhimanyu Singh.
