A1 aka Accused No. 1 is funny man Santhanam’s latest efforts at delivering an uncontrollable comedy with unlimited laughs. In the past few years, the actor has evolved from playing sidekicks to becoming the star of his films, and that ride has been a very bumpy one. In A1, the team has decided to forego plot, logic, and other story related elements and instead has focused on the strengths of the actor. The results are refreshing, and if you’d want a movie that is akin to a stress buster, then A1 should be your choice after a heavy workday.
Saravanan (Santhanam) a local guy from North Chennai gets to meet a typical Tamil cinema’s ‘loosu ponnu’ girl Divya (Tara Alisha Berry), and she is on the lookout to fall for, and marry a bold Brahmin boy. Mistaking Saravanan as one, she is madly in love with him. Her dad Anantharaman (Yatin Karyekar) is an upright and uptight bureaucrat who doesn’t consent to his daughter’s new relationship. Divya nonetheless idolizes her father and thinks that nobody can find such a flawless man ever. She dares Saravanan to find some weakness and imperfections in her dad, and the man of the hour is always up for a challenge. A twist takes place. How Saravanan and his crew confronts her father forms the reminder of the film.
Directed by debutant K. Johnson, A1 is not a film that tries too hard or reinvents the wheel. Santhanam clearly has made this a team-oriented project, and a crew of other comedians including MS Bhaskar, Thangadurai, Manohar, Maran, Kingsly, Sai Kumar and Motta Rajendran has involved themselves to keep the laughs going. Santhanam himself has utilized his strength of caricaturing the traditional Tamil hero image of the swashbuckling one-man army very well. Tara Alisha is just about adequate. Even if things are scripted, you could feel that Santhanam heavily relies on improvisation to deliver the scenes and extract the most out of a dull storyline.
Santhosh Narayanan’s BGM and songs (mostly gana) are the biggest plus for the film.
Overall, A1 doesn’t try to deliver anything serious through its comedy. The makers of this film want you to escape the worries of daily life and have a nice big chuckle instead. They’ve largely succeeded in doing so.
