Amar Akbar Anthony (2015 film)

The plot revolves around three bachelor friends Amar, Akbar and Anthony who live in the same colony in Kochi. Their struggle to live a luxurious life and to visit Pattaya is constantly met with issues. The bike-stunt master and travel agent, Faizal, is also living in the same colony. He receives several injuries when he met an accident while performing bike stunts. He is then admitted to a hospital where he meets other patients. Faizal explains the reason for the accident to the other patients by narrating a story about his three clients Amar, Akbar and Anthony. The three are best friends, who are living a middle-class life.

Amar's father Ramanan works as a security officer at ATM counter, while his mother, Chandrika is a marriage broker, who arranges the marriage of orphan woman Resmiya, but Resmiya's husband runs off with her jewellery hence Resmiya arrives at Amar's house to stay with her kid Fathima whom they lovingly call Pathu. Akbar is a handicapped person, whose father, Stalin Mammali, is a communist bodybuilder while his mother Jameela is a homemaker. Anthony works as a pizza delivery boy at a mall, and is an orphan where his foster father Chakkappan found him left alone inside a movie theatre and lives with his step-parents.

All the friends have a common nemesis Nallavanyana Unni, a gentleman whom everyone likes in the colony, who is later arrested by the police for growing marijuana in his own terrace.

Apart from their usual work, the trio occasionally work as catering service boys for marriages and other functions under the supervision of Rejimon, whose mother usually engages herself with multiple social networking sites. She created a fake Facebook account and tried to make Amar fall in love with her. All three friends have a crush on Jenny, a dancer. Their only goal and dream is to visit Pattaya, Thailand. However, due to family issues, their aim gets delayed each time.

Meanwhile, Amar's father met with an accident and is saved by an ambulance driver name Jadayu Sabu and the money which was saved by the three friends was spent on his father's treatment. Simultaneously, a Bengali child abuser named Dhappan kidnaps small girls. Amar, Akbar and Anthony often bump into the man, but they do not care much about it. Meanwhile, during a celebration in the colony Pathu goes missing and later she is found murdered in a drainage. The new CI Sethunath suspects Dhappan in the case. He scolds the trio for being lazy and not reacting to the issue, which happened between them. Realising their mistake and being thirsty for revenge, the friends catches Dhappan after a long fight and Amar goes to kill him with a sword.

However, Sethunath stops Amar and reveals that Dhappan killed all the small girls but he didn't kill Pathu. However, Sanju, a boy in their colony who goes into mental depression after losing in a reality show, knows who is the main culprit. Amar, Akbar and Antony announced to the colony people that Sanju witnessed the scene and the culprit was their respected colony leader Mash, who was very much loved by Pathu. They along with the villagers attacks him and Dhappan. Amar tells Resmiya to avenge according to her wish and she stabs Mash with a bottle. On the other side, Dhappan is being stabbed to death by the people along with Mash and Akbar hits him with a stick, which he throws above. This stick flies through the sky and gets stuck in a bike which was racing by Faizal. It is at this point that its revealed that Faizal is a travel agent at Pattaya tour and travel. The trio starts a child protection and welfare charity fund under Pathu's name.

Nadirshah made his successful debut with Amar Akbar Anthony.^[4] Mimicry artists, script writers along with Bibin and Vishnu completed the film screenplay in three years. They told the script to Nadirshah they knew for a long time. At listening to the script, Nadirshah showed interest.^[5]

The film was originally scheduled for 70 days with an estimated budget of ₹7 crore (US$730,000). However, it was completed in 65 days with an approximate production cost ₹6 crore (US$630,000).^[6]

The film was remade in Kannada as John Jani Janardhan.

The film was released on 16 October 2015 in India.^[7][8] The television satellite was sold to Surya TV.^[9] Sony Music India released the trailer on 5 October 2015. One day before the official release, its trailer was leaked on the video sharing website YouTube on 4 October which was later removed by the website.^[3] The trailer was viewed by the two lakh viewers in just two days.^[10]

The audios were officially launched by Nivin Pauly and Dileep at an event which was organised by the filmmakers at Kochi on 9 October.^[21][22][23]

The first MP4 song "Premamennal" sung by Prithviraj Sukumaran, Indrajith Sukumaran, Jayasurya and Kalabhavan Shajon was released on 14 October by Sony Music India.^[24] The song "Yenno Njanente" featuring Baby Meenakshi is sung by Sreya Jayadeep was released on 22 October.^[25] The romantic song "Manjaadum" lyrics are written in Malayalam, Hindi and Tamil.^[11]

The film won the following awards:

Kerala State Film Awards^[26]

• Special Jury Mention - Baby Sreya

Ramesh Pisharody reiterate his character Nallavanaya Unni in 2019 Malayalam film Pattabhiraman.