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.

---

Plot Keywords:

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

---

Taglines:

The Fearless

---

Genres:

Action | Crime | Thriller

---

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

When the film was announced it had Simran and Rani Mukherjee (special appearance)in lead roles.

---

Goofs

When Abhay slits the stomach of Sharmilee in animation sequence, some blood can be seen on her stomach. But when she jumps over Abhay, the blood disappears.

---

Quotes

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

---

Crazy Credits

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

---

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.

---

Connections

Referenced in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

---

Soundtracks

Hey! Who are you?
Performed by Kamal Haasan & Manisha Koirala
Written by Javed Akthar

User Reviews

Abhay Review : An excellent film from the time when such films weren't made at all!

Movie : Abhay

Rating : 4.5/5

Kamal Haasan is a master actor. You get the evidence from his 2001 Hindi Action film ABHAY. This film was made and released at a time when such films weren't made at all. Neither did people like them too much as they kept sticking only to romantic films. But this film shows that Indian cinema doesn't always mean the same kind of films with boring and romantic scripts. ABHAY raises the bar of Indian Cinema and extends it at par with the cinema of the world.

ABHAY is entirely a Kamal Haasan show. He once again dominates the entire film with his striking presence. Since it is evident from the posters and trailers that he plays two roles, it needs to be put forward that Kamal Haasan gives a stellar performance as the titular psychopath character Abhay. He rather deserved a national award for this, but he didn't. But the film won a national award of course, for its world class, top notch visual effects.

The other cast including Raveena Tandon, Manisha Koirala etc is good in the respective parts. In this story, all other characters except the two played by Kamal are almost pawns in this game. But that's not a negative point. It's a plus point rather.

The story and screenplay of ABHAY are both something about which I can talk about till many hours. The visual effects are completely out of the box and tremendously excellent, for these kind of visual effects didn't reach India at that time. Even today, these visuals outnumber a lot of present day movies. The fight sequences, as it's an action film, are choreographed and executed very well, especially the climax fight. The film also uses animation technology and those scenes are just outstanding.

The editing, however, seems a little tacky and could have been paid more attention to. Several sequences extend and drag a bit, in the first half. Also, the length of the film goes a little beyond the usual one, i.e, 3 hours. But one can't deny that ABHAY is an adaptation of Kamal Haasan's own "novel" Dayam, therefore this negative point can be crossed because cutting down a novel to 3 hours is something that can be well understood.

The music isn't very good, with only songs like "Dekho Abhay" and "Kal Tak Mujhko Gaurav Tha" leaving an impact, both on stereo and video. However, the other songs look good with the visuals only rather than simply listening them on stereo.

But still, ABHAY emerges as a huge victory, and rather a grand triumph: not just for Kamal Haasan, but also for the Indian Cinema.

If you really want Indian Cinema to change and if you are also looking for the films that changed it, watch ABHAY. You'll yourself believe it.