I broke the oath I had taken earlier of not watching any Telugu movie, in a moment of insanity when I saw the booking counter wide open in Casino theatre of Chennai. The pull – the gravity of which was much more than I had anticipated when I took that remarkable decision of quitting Telugu movies sucked me into the theatre.
Ah well! I will just treat this as a passing exception to a great rule.
The cycle of watching a Telugu movie does not get completed until I write up an article on it and post it on at least three discussion boards on the net.
So here it is – My commentary on Athadu.
One line summary: Good movie. Good humor. Must watch once.
It is stylish, sleek and well thought out. The lines spoken by the leading characters are down to Earth – reek of reality. I loved the introduction of Mahesh Babu and Sonu Sood – their camaraderie. The title sequence was the best I have seen in years. Technically this is brilliant.
Athadu is a good movie. And it stops just at that. It could have been a great flick. However it falls short of that level just by an inch or two.
So, what distinguishes a great movie from a good movie? What makes you fall in love with the moving images on the silver screen?
To start with, the screenplay has gaping holes the size of Oregon Lake. The direction, brilliant in the village sequence, has a lot of room for improvement in the other parts of the movie. It fails to sustain the edge-of-seat experience created by the explosive first fifteen minutes.
Here are some minor things the director could have avoided.
The train scene – Rajeev Kanakala and Mahesh Babu. They are seated in the side aisle seats of a second class sleeper compartments. In the direct shot – the birth numbers are shown as 9 and 16. No Indian train has such a distribution of seats. Side Lower and Upper births are always consecutive numbers.
In another angle of the same shot, Rajeev Kanakala’s birth number is shown as 40.
When the shooting takes place, Rajeev and Mahesh have switched their seats.
Mahesh Babu arrives as Parthu. He is taken to the Pooja room and then to Nassar. Mahesh is wearing his shoes throughout.
These are pretty small things and do not affect the experience considerably. However this shows a bit of carelessness on the director’s part which I feel could have been avoided. My professor back in college used to tell us that coming twenty minutes late to the class is OK because it might be for a genuine reason but coming two or three minutes late is unpardonable because it just shows that you didn’t take the class seriously.
Athadu errs in that area. There are small mistakes scattered all over the movie. If only these aspects were taken care of, Athadu would have been a masterpiece.
Some of the other pain areas:
Prakash Raj says that the bullet could not have hit the forehead of the minister from the location where Mahesh’ rifle was found. He opines that from that angle, the killer could only hit the temple. In the end, it was shown that Sonu Sood fired the fatal shot from a window which was directly below Mahesh’ location. So even Sonu Sood could not have hit the forehead from that angle. (Same vertical)
Mahesh, being a professional killer on the run, should have guessed that it wouldn’t take an investigating officer half a minute to probe Rajeev Kanakala’s family.
The old city opening sequence, breathtaking in its execution suffers a little from the overzealousness of the director. After the murder, Mahesh is seen walking away. The scene rewinds a bit and the murder is shown explicitly. This could have been avoided. The beauty of not showing the murder was compromised. The scene as such was great with the meaning conveyed perfectly to the audience.
Coming to the songs – The movie has at least one song too many. Crisper editing in the village section with not more than four songs overall would have greatly enhanced the repeat value of the movie.
The following scenes are beautiful.
Fight scene after the land grabbing episode.
Brahmaji Vs Mahesh Babu episode
Trisha and Mahesh – When Mahesh talks about his true feelings. The way she hugs him… natural and hard hitting.
This commentary will be incomplete if I don’t talk about Mahesh’ performance.
He has underplayed the character to perfection. He talks less but lets his action speak volumes about him. Perfect characterization of a professional killer. He proves again that no matter how his films fare at the box office, no one can point a finger at his action.
All said and done, my rating is – Must Watch Once.