Anti-Indian Movie Review

Baasha (Maaran), a wall painting artist is mysteriously murdered. Since his father is a Muslim and his mother got converted to Christianity, it becomes bizarre in the neighbourhood pertaining to the issue of burying his mortal remains according to a particular region. With the situation on the verge of becoming a communal issue, how politicians make use of this situation in their favour for the sake of forthcoming elections forms the crux of this story.

This film could be considered as a rarity as it is the first-ever low-budget movie without any big star-cast or technicians in recent times to gain sensationalism prior to its release. Courtesy to Maaran: an avid film critic, who is famous for his hard and harsh criticisms, which made even members from the Tamil film fraternity look forward to this release. The film opens with the close-up shot of Maaran’s dead body, which indeed shows his act of breaking the long followed pattern of disbelief that a movie shouldn’t begin with a mishap. He keeps breaking those so-called myths in many places throughout the film. When it comes to Tamil cinema, most of the communal clashes are displayed as a triggering act of politicians, who are considered as the antagonists. Significantly, Maaran has followed the same here, but with yet more depth and intensity. What begins as a question of the hour – Which religion does Baasha belong to soon gets tangled with the political moves within the Islamic Dargah, innocent people from the Hindu religion misguided by the politicians, pastors always vigilant to convert people, and the political groups that make use of every opportunity in their favour. Maaran has presented this film with so many realistic elements.

The first hour has a bunch of lively and engaging moments, but the actual problem begins with the second hour, where the screenplay becomes dragging. How much ever, realistic a movie might be, it deserves some sort of engaging screenplay, or else, it has more chances for audiences to reject it as an art cinema. Although Maaran has come up with a hard-hitting plot, the film fails to engage us thoroughly. The entire movie gives an impression of watching a news channel, or, in other words, a documentary.
When it comes to performances, Radharavi, Aadukalam Naren, and Vijay TV Bala have delivered promising performances. Maaran has a deceased dead body that manages to win our attention. On the technical part, neither the music nor the cinematography is impressive.

On the whole, Anti-Indian is a movie that might impress a minor group of audiences, but not mainstream cinema lovers.