So Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya was a polished movie with a smart plot, interesting characters, comedic undertones, and neat execution. The events in the movie led neatly to each other, and the unraveling of the narrative was quick and effortless.
Agent Kannayiram is for all purposes, a remake of ASSA, with boring characters, a non-existing comedic undertone, bloated execution, and a confusing plot. Some events from the original have been given much more consideration than they deserve, and the narrative does not need any unraveling as a major part of it is made very obvious at the very beginning.
My biggest gripe with AK is the first 20 minutes or so where the mother is given a backstory. That, and the constant reminders about how the son blames himself for the mothers death.
Some characters have been changed to differentiate the movie from the original, so the female lead is not an apprentice but a reporter, Bobby the useful detective who had a legitimate reason for being in the plot is replaced by Maayavi the useless, non-important apprentice (yeah why they did that, I do not know) who has no reason for being in the plot. The villain is not a smart criminology graduate but a ... well, don't want to go SPOILING THAT now, do we? It's fine to make changes to the original script, but ONLY if it adds value to the plot. In this case, however...
Unlike ASSA, which had an explanation for everything, AK leaves many loose ends. How does the policeman not even know the name of someone he put in jail, for instance?
So while ASSAs narrative was about the crime, AK is about the lonely deaths. The crime takes a backseat.
The movie definitely leaves one with a lot of 'if onlys' and 'why this's', the greatest of all being "Why is a movie that is a remake of a comedy-mystery a wannabe mystery thriller, if it stars Santhanam?" Truth be told, after watching AK, I watched ASSA again, this time inserting Santhanam into the role of ASSA. I could see no reason why an exact remake would not have been successful. If anything, it could have been better. It was easy to imagine Santhanam as the coat-wearing, empty mug sipping, one-liner delivering, eccentric detective that was ASSA. It was a pain to watch Santhanam as the evil-guy-fighting, serious dialogue delivering, confused detective that is AK. This is not to mean that Santhanam cannot do serious roles. His performance here is surely commendable. He gives it his all in every shot. The writing and execution, however, fail him.
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