Aalavandhan
Tags: good versus evil, psychedelic, murder, violence

Plot synopsis:
Vijay Kumar, a Commando in Delhi is due to marry his girlfriend Tejaswini "Teju", a television news presenter. Vijay's twin brother Nandu is a psychopath with schizophrenia. They both were separated as children and Nandu spent most of his life in an asylum for killing his stepmother. Vijay cares about Nandu and looks forward to his release, but a doctor tells him that Nandu is a danger to the society and should not be released.
Vijay and Teju visit Nandu to share the news about their impending marriage, which turns disastrous when Nandu sees in Teju his stepmother Jayanthi, who he hates for ruining his life. Seeking to save Vijay from Teju, who he sees as the "witch", Nandu manages to escape custody after killing two other inmates. Nandu later meets his maternal uncle—responsible for admitting him in the asylum—who dies on seeing him. After their marriage, Vijay and Teju are shocked on learning of Nandu's escape. The doctor believes it was another patient who escaped, but Vijay is convinced that it was Nandu.
Nandu visit's Vijay's home when he is not there and leaves a message to kill Teju. He keeps conversing with his deceased mother in his imagination. While searching for Teju, Nandu meets singer Sharmilee and both develop a liking for each other. Soon, Nandu gets hallucinations where he sees Sharmilee as his stepmother and brutally murders her. Regretting his actions, he burns her corpse before exiting the room, but leaves behind evidence through which Vijay deduces him as the murderer.
Vijay and Teju leave for Vijay's ancestral home in Ooty to stay safe from Nandu, but he secretly follows them. Vijay and Teju find Nandu's old diary in the house through which they read his past: Vijay and Nandu's mother committed suicide due to their father Santosh's affair with Jayanthi, who later became their stepmother. Both brothers hate her and Nandu becomes violent at school. The teacher complains about it and Nandu justifies that he is only reflecting the home environment. An enraged Santosh beats both his sons for abusing his wife. One day, the brothers see Jayanthi having an affair with another person and Nandu tries telling this to his father who pays no heed, and instead beats him. Nandu pleads to his maternal uncle to take him along with him. But as he is suffering from throat cancer, he refuses and suggests a boarding school. Eventually, Vijay leaves with his uncle to a boarding school while Nandu remains home.
The situation gets worse at home with Nandu and Jayanthi turning violent and Santosh gets a heart attack. Nandu overhears a conversation between his stepmother and a lawyer, and realises that she is after his father's wealth. Seeing this, Santosh dies due to another heart attack. Nandu is now shocked to see both his deceased parents in his hallucination. His mother gives him the mission of killing Jayanthi, which Nandu does. Nandu stays with the corpses in the house before being incarcerated at the asylum.
In the present, Vijay learns from his old friend Thenkoshut that Nandu has reached Ooty. Vijay reaches on time to save Teju from Nandu, who entered their hotel room and leaves with her. Nandu chases the car in which they escape. After a long chase, Vijay manages to push Nandu's car into an abyss and assumes he is dead. However, Nandu escapes and continues his trail. Vijay plans to leave the city and notices Nandu coming to the hotel secretly.
Vijay and his commandos try to nab him but he takes on everyone. He even finds and corners Teju who starts whacking him with a belt in self-defence, mirroring Jayanthi's manner of punishing Nandu, convincing him that Teju is indeed Jayanthi's reincarnation. Vijay reaches by then and there is a fight between the brothers, in which Nandu overpowers Vijay. Suddenly, Nandu sees his mother asking him to join her as Jayanthi is torturing her up there. He realises his mistake and apologises to Vijay for chasing Teju. To kill his stepmother, he lights up some cylinders despite Vijay's request not to do so and to return. The cylinders explode and kill Nandu.

Review: I read reviews form a lot of people and places..
and most of them said this movie was pretty bad..
but i think most of the people are looking at this movie from too narrow of a mindset..this movie is about abhay and vijay..
abhay is suffering from schizophrenia which becomes even worse after he starts experimenting with all kinds of psychedelic drugs..
this movie takes you to journey through the delusioned and schizophrenic mind of abhay..
this is one of those rare indian movies which might not be for everyone to see..
Things mis-understood,missed in Abhay.
I was just looking at the ratings and comments of some of Kamal's bold ventures.
A comment above said the rain song was useless.
It is important because the psycho imagines the (Manisha)lady is asking him to attend the show.
He attends the show thinking that Raveena (the women he wants to kill) would also be present as the show is covered by the TV Channel she's working.For some who thought the movie was crap.
Kamal uses the different Indian languages and finds fun eg: Rao is a typical Telugu name and Rao also means early morning in Tamil.
When the brothers toss the coin to choose which 1 of them stays with father, Nandhu(Psycho) seeing it going against him would say, 'It's perhaps my duty to safeguard my lil brother.
Even wen we (Brothers) wer born, I first let the younger one out (science - younger of the twin comes out 1st) and then came to the world.
n then there r several pieces of brilliance in the movie..
The human genome is a fascinating concept, and even more fascinating is how identical twins with the exactly same DNA can be extremely different and extremely alike.
Abhay explores this philosophy, but in a more dramatized and dangerous setting; One twin kills for profession; one twin kills for enjoyment; One is a commando; one has escaped from a mental institute.
Abhay delves deep into the double helix paradigm and into the psychology of a killer, and does what Tarsem Singh's, "The Cell", or Rakesh Mehra's, "Aks-the reflection" could not do.Synopsis:Abhay(Kamal Hassan) is the journey of a schizophrenic and fearless brother, whose past has wronged him and embedded its mark deep into his soul, creating a personal hell inside Abhay; A hell in which Abhay is living; A hell that haunts him every passing second and with every breath he takes.
While Abhay spent most of his life in a mental asylum, his other twin Vijay(Kamal Hassan) was separated from him from childhood.
Vijay is a commando that is due to marry his girlfriend, Tejashvari(Raveena Tandon), a news presenter for STAR TV, who is pregnant with his child.
Wanting Abhay to share in with their celebrations, Vijay and Tejashvari decide to pay Abhay a visit at the asylum.
Abhay sees the reflection of his step mother in Tejashvari, a person who he immensely hated and caused his life to decay.
Abhay's mission begins with Tejashvari, who he sees as an evil witch who is going to deteriorate Vijay's life, just like his step mother spoiled his fathers life.
Abhay eventually manages to escape from the mental asylum and is now walking around free searching for the "witch" that his brother has just wed.
Is the world safe from Abhay?
Kamal Hassan's story and screenplay is intelligent, well paced, innovative, engaging and extremely interesting.
Each character has been well etched and contributes perfectly to the screenplay.
Abhay costing $7 million to produce, looks every dollar spent on it.
Abhay is full of technical wizardry, 25 min of spectacular visual effects and animation executed marvellously by Total infotainment limited(India) and Cutting Edge(Australia).Action and stunts by Vikram Dharma are stunning and well choreographed.
Abhay has some very adrenaline pumping  executed sequences and some very dangerous stunts.
The most notable action sequences are in the climax sequences, which involves a long vehicle chase sequence, a hazardous bungie jump from atop a 50 story building, a jump from atop the same building onto a balloon suspended in the air,  and then a fantastically choreographed fight sequence between Abhay and Vijay.
S.Tirru's cinematography is absolutely fantastic, he manages to capture the atmosphere very effectively and use some very advanced camera effects(motion control) to add to the visual splendour of Abhay.Music is peppy and themed, and interwoven in the plot with purpose.
Kamal Hassan play's both the main character Abhay and Vijay.
Normally I do not like Kamal Hassan's style of acting, I was very put off with his character portrayal in  Hindustani, Hey Ram and Pushpak.
However, he simply blew me away with Abhay.
Kamal Hasaan has managed to seep deep into the character of Abhay and inject it with his life force.
Kamal has built his body, learnt gestures and very well researched the personalities and behaviours of a psychopath killer for this role.
However Abhay is not a two dimensional character as shown in most movies that deal with these themes.
Kamal Hasaan performance adds one more dimension to Abhay's character, which normally would be perceived as the negative role, however Kamal's performance projects Abhay as both the hero and the villain.Overall: A classic in every sense.
really interesting and well done movie.
This movie is like a mixture of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Silence of the Lambs, and Face Off. But its unique in it's own way and pretty unusual for a Hindi movie.
The acting performances are good, and especially the drug trips are great to watch.
This movie has cult potential..
Warning: I have viewed this movie only in Tamil.
Telugu and Hindi movie-goers are expected to add a pinch of salt while reading further.This is one of the most hyped-up movies ever in Indian movie history.
When people begin to wonder if it can live upto the hype, the movie reveals the calculated gradual publicity built up over the months.
In case you haven't watched and read enough on television and the Web, do so immediately to comprehend the movie better.The basic story is nothing new, but the movie delves to a large extent into the dark recesses of the psychopathic mind of Nandu.
We get to view the real-plus-imaginary world inhabited by this schizophrenic character "with paranoid delusions", courtesy special effects and animation.
Many scenes involving Nandu send a chill down your spine, though the language and violence, at times, seems unfit for children.While the commando operation in the beginning and the relationship between the lead pair remind of you Hollywood movies, the designer clothes worn by the antagonist and sponsor promotion towards the end are true Bollywood 'ishtyle'.
What you get is a curious mix of cliches and innovations.Kamal Haasan plays the negative character alternating between style and realism, though things seem to get repetitive.
The other character of an NSG major seems much like the real-life Kamal, mouthing anti-religious remarks and sporting a unique lifestyle.
Raveena manages to hold her own while Manisha is good despite appearing only in a few scenes.
Talented actors like Gunaji and Gidwani seem wasted in roles with few scenes and little potential.No stone has been left unturned when it comes to the technical aspects of the movie like art direction, cinematography, editing, sound effects and visual effects; but the computer graphics is found wanting sometimes.
Double role picturisation has possibly never been better, even in Hollywood, though those movies rarely employ an actor portraying two roles.
The attention to detail is also stunning.The songs blend seamlessly with the movie, beyond expectations -- the title track serves as the background for a chase sequence and still manages to come out good!
Vairamuthu's lyrics and poems bring out the various dimensions of the complex character.
Symbolism is built into the script (done by Kamal Haasan himself) much like Hey Ram, reducing the work of the director.To sum it up, this is an interesting masala movie, with exemplary techniques and a lot of sensible elements incorporated into it..
A Strange Movie.
I was very pleased with their addition of musical numbers into all of their movies, but it makes them that much longer.
Clocking in at three hours, I was told that this is typical of an Indian movie.The addition of animation was a very cool touch as well, as Abhay goes into drug induced schizophrenia.A lot like Silence of the Lambs, but their is some grisly violence, but the lead actor does a great job as a psycho killer.Overall, a long but at times interesting movie.
Abhay Review : An excellent film from the time when such films weren't made at all!.
Movie : AbhayRating : 4.5/5Kamal 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Abhay: Psychotic Thriller or just plain psycho?.
Abhay has been heavily hyped for a long time.
It was looking to be a very different film from Bollywood norm of sappy romances.
The storyline for the movie is said to have been conceived and written by Kamal Hassan over ten years ago, so it's hard for one not to get excited about such a film.
Story: Vijay Kumar is a special forces commando stationed in Kashmir.
He has a girlfriend, Tejaswani, whom he is planning to wed within due time.
When both of them get together, they decide to get Abhay, Vijay's brother, to attend the wedding.
However, their requests to the doctor are denied as they deem Abhay unfit for society.
During their visit, Abhay sees Tejaswani and immediately remembers his evil stepmother and threatens to kill her.
Vijay and Tejaswani leave immediately.
Abhay escapes from the mental institute and kills his two assailants.
On the way to find Tejaswani, he gets involved in drugs, and gets really high along the way, killing two people during the process, one of whom was a girl he was in love with.
Eventually, Vijay and Tejaswani leave the city to escape from Abhay.
Vijay finds his old home, and finds a diary written by Abhay.
He opens it up to discover a few things from Abhay's past.
Watch Abhay to find out!
The story is extremely impressive, on paper.
However, the execution of the story is poor.
The pacing of the story is very wrong, especially with two scenes in particular: When Abhay gets high, and Abhay's flashback to childhood.
Both of the scenes are stretched out way too long, and would bore all but the most patient viewers.
Story Rating: 9.5/10 Overall Story Rating (including handling): 6/10 Performances: Acting throughout is a varied point.
Kamal Hassan does an okay job as Major Vijay Kumar, but special commendation goes to his second role as Abhay.
His intense portrayal is excellent, and there is no confusion at all about Abhay's character.
Raveena Tandon is nothing really special, but then again, her role isn't anything special.
Manisha Koirala is irritating in her `special appearance' with her feigned American accent.
As previously mentioned, the story is handled poorly.
Certain scenes extend way too long, which confuse the viewer many times.
The narrative through the movie isn't handled well, as the flashback sequences are too long and tiring to watch.
Rating: 4 /10 Technical Aspects: Abhay really succeeds on special effects.
The special effects during Abhay's `high sequence' are impressive.
It works very well to show the world from Abhay's perspective at that point.
The animation looks good, but there's a bit too much of it, adding to the unbelievably of the situation.
The action sequences also deserve special mention.
The ending chase scene is especially good, with some great stunts, and well-paced action.
Cinematography isn't really anything special.
Also, there are some nice camera effects used in the film.
Editing varies; it's slick at other times, and bad at others.
Rating: 9/10 Songs: The music for Abhay is well-composed and Javed Akhtar's lyrics are good.
The songs might not be instantly catchy, but they fit the mood of the story well.
However, placement of the songs is quite weak.
(In order): Hasde Hasde: A fun-loving number, but nothing really special as far as picturization.
Picturized at an engagement party between Vijay and Tejaswani.
Kaltak Mujko Gaurav Tha: A great number, but not used too well in the film.
Having Abhay dance around holding a flyer isn't really the best way to picturize a number like this.
This could have worked if it had several placements throughout the film, like `Watan Walo' from Indian.
However, the picturization at the end credits is a bit better, with Abhay moving around in the rain, tinted with a green lens.
It's picturized as a dance number between Abhay and Manisha.
Really pointless, and not even a good composition.
Zingoria: A nice dance number with Manisha Koirala.
The dance is performed quite well, but hampers the narrative.
This is where Abhay first sees Manisha Koirala in real life.
: Picturized as a sensual encounter between Abhay and Manisha, this one really makes no impact.
Only a few lines from this already weak song are used, so one cannot even consider this song used in the film.
Khoyal Mili Tumko: A background song as Tejaswani and Vijay are leaving the city.
It's a nice song, but hampers the pace of the movie, just as Zingoria did.
Dekho Abhay: Background music during the final chase scene.
It works well in the background, adding the right action feel to the song.
Rating: 5.5/10 Overall: Abhay is an interesting film, hampered by its weak narrative.
The movie is worth watching only for the concept, special effects, and action scenes.
However, the movie requires a lot of patience to sit through.
worst movie I have ever seen.
Easily the worst movie I have ever seen in my life.
Story: pathetic.
Screenplay : that will be a good idea.
Preserve your sanity, dont ever see this movie !.
Kamal Hassan often has good ideas but the execution is not always best.
Good story/characters but so long and tedious at times.
Special effects were impressive for that era but now look lame.
Good effort and worth a watch if you are a fan of Kamal's work..
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.
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..
How to spoil a movie -learn from kamal.
Another good movie, another spoiler from Kamal.
Introduction to a new concept for Indian fans but a disappointment..
The movie introduces Indian cinema to a unexperimented idea before in Indian films which is appreciable but i believe kamal haasan should have done more research on psychopath behavior, the movie also had many parts that were simply unrequired or too stretched out.As for kamal haasan's portrayal of the psychopath character is quite good.I agree with to the review by RNJBOND mostly but what i can't stop thinking about is how a psychopath who spent all of his time in a mental asylum since killing his step mother know how to and eventually manages to survive uncaught for days out in the open and especially knows to drive different vehicles form bike, car and even a lorry??
Guess kamal haasan never thought about that and also abhay easily getting access to manisha or tejaswini's room was too convenient.
The movies makes cops and simply everyone else in the movie except vijay look too dumb.