Movie: Aagadu
Director: Srinu Vaitla
Cast: Mahesh Babu, Tamannah Bhatia, Sonu Sood, Brahmanandam, Prakash Raj, Rajendra Prasad, Rao Ramesh, M.S Narayana, Brahmaji
Rating: **1/2
When we hear an announcement of an actor playing a cop in the current Telugu film scenario, we mentally prepare ourselves for a template. The limited joy lies in making a reality-check of our predictions behind the director’s loyalty towards the pattern. Aagadu, in the truest sense, expects the viewer’s ‘willing suspension of disbelief’.
After all, we know that there are frames celebrating the appearance of the hero’s misty image after the dust gets cleared, his multitasking abilities of saving the system and dating a girl at once, the villain getting personal and turning into an object of utter buffoonery later. The team of Dookudu’s writers and its female lead may have been altered, but the tricks remain the same. If the lack of any originality is its biggest curse, the lead actor’s ease in enjoying all the attention gifted to him is its primary strength.
The director takes a dig at himself and his own punchlines. He takes cue from Boyapati’s Legend and Harish Shankar’s Gabbar Singh, continuing from where he left in Dookudu and extended in Baadshah, relying on select episodes to make up for the gaps. The game show spoof is one such. The advertisements on sweets is another show of interesting yet stereotypical humor. Making Brahmanandam dance to the tunes of the antagonist is an addition to the list too. Does this continue to mean the abuse of the phrase ‘action entertainer’ for the times to come ? Taking note of the reactions of the audiences, it seems so.
Aagadu, with its contrived material, needed a star to elevate its ideas. The film revolves around the dialogues more than a plot. The tone is explicitly loud. Mahesh Babu, on those lines is in terrific form. His betterment at comedy since Khaleja comes to the fore yet again. He pulls of sequences with an element of panache and elegance to let us know that he’s having a blast. Necessarily in the first half, we too are smitten by the arrogant charm.
However as the 165-minute film progresses into its second hour, we either get too smart or be numbed by such mechanical treatment that the fun of watching a star-film is lost. We root for occasional one-liners, but nevertheless miss the electric flavor of a mass craving film. It constantly propagates a mob mentality in seeing the end of the baddies. Sorry, but we realise, there’s no room for correctness or idealism here.
The best comedians in the industry, including Brahmanandam, Posani, Nasser(you read it right) and Vennela Kishore, despite minimal screen-space make their presence felt. While the leading lady, in this case, Tamanna is only an eye-candy, Rajendra Prasad’s track, a dejavu of Prakash Raj’s space in Dookudu, indicates us of Sreenu Vaitla’s self-inflicted barriers. Aagadu at least stays safe because of his recent form. The visuals are opulent and the resources dumped, really show and even distract us for a considerable while. Otherwise, regardless of the success or the failure of the film, this redundancy isn’t great news to his graph. Aagadu, with its intermittent sparkle may still be a ‘big’ film. The larger issues of the diminishing scope of commercial films, however, continue to plague.
Review by Srivathsan N. First published in Cinegoer.net
