A whole lot of courageous people have been involved in the making of Ammaiyappa, the movie that promotes eternal punching bag Ponnambalam to hero status - Ponnambalam himself, who believed that he could carry a movie on his own, heroine Roshini, who agreed to be paired with her gigantic co-star, the director, who had the guts to make a movie with Ponnambalam as hero and ofcourse the producer, who was ready to fund such a venture. But more courage than all these combined is required from the viewer who steps into the cinema hall(or as in my case, rents the video from the store) to view this movie.

Ammaiyappan(Ponnambalam) is a tribal who has been blessed with superhuman strength(how do we know this? he singlehandedly uproots a tree while the villagers watch and cheer!). Winning the local bullock cart race brings him to the notice of Rajeswari(Roshini), the zamindar's daughter. She expresses her wish to wed him but Ammaiyappa wisely refuses. But when his mother(Satyapriya) relates her flashback to him, revealing that Rajeswari is the one for him, he kidnaps and weds her. So the zamindar vows to destroy their family.

The movie does little other than prove conclusively that Ponnambalam is not cut out to be a hero. Though he picks a role that suits his build, emotes surprisingly well and fights aggressively, his looks make it difficult for us to accept him as a conventional leading man. And though the romantic scenes are thankfully kept to a minimum, his presence in the few such scenes and the song sequences are difficult to sit through.

But the presense of Ponnambalam as hero is not the only problem with Ammaiyappa. It features an age-old story, faithfully incorporating all the cliches that go with it. We have a cruel zamindar, an abundance of mother-son sentiments, romance between a rich girl and the poor hero and opposition by the girl's father. Add to this a couple of oft-seen bullock-cart races and a flashback that introduces a link between the hero and heroine through the hero's mother and it should be clear that movie does not contain even a shred of originality.

The movie inexplicably lets oppurtunities for introducing some excitement slip by. When Ponnambalam offers Roshini's father seven days within which he can take back his daughter, one can reasonably expect the father's attempts to rescue his daughter to occupy atleast a little screen time. But apparently, he does does absolutely nothing since the wedding takes place with no resistance whatsoever! This allows the movie to offer further evidence of Ponnambalam and Roshini's love for each other. These scenes contain the few passable scenes in the movie. The climax, though bloody, manages to make an impact.

Ponnambalam emotes well, especially during the scenes with his mother. Roshini looks petite and quite pretty. While Ponnambalam has been promoted to hero, 'Mahanadhi' Shankar another bad guy who usually plays a henchman, gets promoted to main villain and is quite convincing as the zamindar with no redeeming qualities. The so-called comedy scenes in the movie makes us glad the video remote has a fast-forward button. But music director Venkatesh seems to have risen above the quality of the rest of the movie. Roshini's solo song and a couple of duets are pleasing to the ear.