Aalavandhan (2001)

A psychopath tries to protect his twin brother from a lady he visualizes as his evil stepmother, and eventually ends up fighting with him.

Director:

Suresh Krishna

Writers:

H. Banerjee (Subtitles), Kamal Haasan (novel)

Stars:

Kamal Haasan, Raveena Tandon, Manisha Koirala

2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Kamal Haasan	...	Nandhakumar / Major Vijayakumar
Raveena Tandon	...	Tejaswini
Manisha Koirala	...	Sharmilee
Kitu Gidwani	...	Abhay-Vijay's stepmother
Shri Vallabh Vyas	...	Dr. Srinivasa Rao
Milind Gunaji	...	Lt. Col. Santosh Kumar
Vikram Gokhale	...	Abhay-Vijay's uncle
Naveen Nischol	...	Tejaswini's father
Smita Jaykar	...	Tejaswini's mother
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Anuradha Hasan	...	Nandhu / Vijay's Mother
Riyaz Khan	...	Sultan
Mayilsamy	...	Theatre Patron
Major Ravi	...	Menon
Sarika	...	Cameo
Yashpal Sharma	...	Terrorist Gul

Storyline

The story follows Abhay (Haasan) who has a disturbed childhood and severe mental trauma misunderstands her to be Sister in Law Tejasvini (Raveena Tandon) who is supposed to marry his Army Commando twin brother Major Vijay (Haasan). When Abhay meets Tejasvini, who visualizes her as her evil step mother who was the cause of the fall of his family and the death of both his parents and separation from his twin brother whom he loves dearly. He escapes the mental asylum to fulfill his duty towards his brother by getting rid of the woman. There are a lot of action packed encounters that Abhay has with his own brother, the estranged wife and many other characters including a very fun loving and popular singer - actress Sharmilee (Manisha Koirala) (cameo) who all willingly or unwillingly come in midst of the fight of a right man at the wrong place within wrong circumstances.

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Plot Keywords:

commando | psychopath | stabbed in the stomach | violence | surrealism | 

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Taglines:

The Fearless

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official Bollywood Hungama site Official Site

Country:

India

Language:

Tamil Hindi Telugu

Release Date:

16 November 2001 (India)

Also Known As:

Abhay

Filming Locations:

India

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

INR 6,659,284 (India), 22 November 2001

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

INR 33,105,600

Company Credits

Production Co:

An Ak Audio, V. Creations

Technical Specs

Runtime:

177 min 155 min (cut) 112 min (re-cut) 146 min (Telugu)

Sound Mix:

DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The scenes where both Vijay and Nandhu characters appear were not done with the traditional matte or masking shots technique, which always involved static shots (where the camera would not move). 'Aalavandhan' took it one step further by not using any static shots for both characters to appear in, and instead went for a motion-control rig to mount the camera on and film these sequences with shifting camera angles. This expensive rig did not exist in India, so it had to be imported from Australia. Filming twice the same sequences with Vijay first and, weeks later, Nandhu next was thus made much easier from both a cinematographic and technical standpoint. This was the 1st time an Indian film used a motion-control rig.

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Goofs

During the chase scene near the climax, there is a point where Nandhu/Abhay does a side-wheelie with his car while Vijay fires at it from his car. In some shots, either the back tire or the front tire of Nandhu's car is not moving at all, even though he is still driving.

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Quotes

Abhay: I don't write poems, I speak them.

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Crazy Credits

The title of the film is revealed only in Hindi and not in English.

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Alternate Versions

The theatrical Hindi version lasts around 178 minutes, while the dubbed Telugu theatrical version lasts around 146 minutes. There were two censor cuts in the Hindi original version, but there were no censor cuts in the Telugu version.

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Connections

Referenced in Tere Naam (2003)

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Soundtracks

Dekho Abhay
Performed by Shankar Mahadevan
Written by Javed Akthar

User Reviews

A sorry reminder of the terrible state of Indian commercial moviemaking

Avoid it, if you can. A sorry excuse for movie-making and the visual effects are as fragmented as are the director's and Kamal Hassan's perception of art. Watching "Hey Ram" by Kamal Hassan had given me a slim hope that "Abhay" might be decent. However, that was a seriously aberrated perception. It is an effort in sheer futility (actually, the worst sitcoms might even have more substance). Mr. Hassan needs to refrain from using the pen except for signatures (he should not meander into the bylanes of trying to write a psychological novel- unless he wishes to be jeered at). Again, he needs to realize that a deranged patient is not a chimpanzee (not even an orangutan). And as for the director- go back to school- would do him good (especially if he has never been there). Finally, to all who may have enjoyed this movie (if you should call it one), my sincerest apologies- your tolerance, patience, and resolve are simply unsurpassing.