Review of Attarintiki Daaredi (Rating 4/5)

Yet another rip-roaring comedy (like Dookudu).    starring the main stream super star/ `Power star Pawan Kalyan, I am so scarred of Pawan Kalyan and his brand of over the top over-acting and meaningless movies which still manage to make huge money at box office thanks to his crazy fans.       Even I avoided seeing his super-duper hit GABBAR SINGH (remake of Dabang) and caught up only on TV in which he did a decent job.   But I must admit that, despite his larger than life action hero image, he took a great risk of acting in an out and out family entertainer and it paid rich dividends by his pulling the trick which Mahesh Babu and Vakatesh failed in Seetamma Vakitlo….

All the credit for taking up such risky venture and making such clean family entertainer should go to the Director Trivikram Srinivas.     May be it is only the second time and after more than 50 years after release of `Gundamma Katha’ that a movie starring mainline super stars (hero and heroines)  is named after another female character - `Atta’ in this case He once again proved that movie making is a director’s medium and if the actors/star howsoever star status value they enjoy, if they have surrender themselves to the directors they can do wonders.       Kudos to the director that he converted a simple story without much twists and turns into a healthy comedy of 3 hours duration with humour sprinkled almost in every frame without affecting the main flow of the movie and at the end you feel like asking for more.   With this movie, it is once again proved that no one can beat Telugu film industry in making comedy movies – even with main line super stars.

To the best of my recollection, it is for the first time in his 15 years film career we see Pawan Kalyan putting up such a restrained performance, pulled off comedy extremely well and could even emote a bit in the climax.    For Pawan kalyan, it is a risk of life time which he took and it paid off and it could be a game changer for him.    It should go to his credit that with two nephews (Allur ARjun and Ram Charan Teja) ruling the top rung, he still holds his stardom and fan following base.    Choosing such movies and doing some restrained acting will be like doing the balancing act and prolong his career.     There has been manageable dose of his brand of action scenes (finishing off the task in few seconds), just to satisfy his fans but focus was not action scenes.     Pawan’s face was looking very chubby, he should do something for the same, but for that he was looking as fit as he ever looks.  

Praneeta with her lightened up and lively face was good and stole the thunder from Samanta though her role was not well defined and confusing and has less footage than Samanta.   

Samanta picked up post intermission but bit overshadowed in this movie.     Nadhiya (whom I am seeing for the first time) did a very decent job in the pivotal role of `Atta’ on whom the movie is named after.    MSN and his side kicks and Ali did brilliant act and are instrumental is making the movie so lively.     During the interval I was wondering that it is one of the rare movies by a top star without Branhmanandam featuring in it.    But almost towards the end Brahmanandam makes a grand entry and puts the screen on fire with a nonstop comedy specially the 10-12 minutes duration `Gautam Ahalya’ skit.  

I always had serious reservation in Hindi actors doing the heroin, character actor and villain roles in Telugu films.   With their restricted expressions due to lack of understanding of the language and horrible lip sync they make a mockery of themselves.    But it has become fashionable and every top star from Chiranjeevi Najurjuna those days to NTR clan and Chiranjeevi clan these days demanding for Hindi heroins and villains as a result of which in the last 2 decades the Telugu film industry has not produced a single top ranking Telugu speaking heroin, villain or character actor after Jaya Prada, Jaya Sudha and Kota Srinivas.   Most of them, who are unemployed in Hindi film industry like Mukesh Rishi, Sharad Saxena, Ashish Vidharthi, Anupam Kher, Paresh Rawal, Jakhie Sheroff are lapped up for reasons best known to the producers.    A rare exception to this being  Amrish Puri essaying main villain role in `Jagadeka Veerudu Atiloka Sundari’ brilliantly and doing his own dubbing.   After this many years Bomman Irani making his debut in Telugu movie did a fantastic job.     Besides putting a very decent performance he did good job of lip syncing the dialogues and was not looking out of place.

DSP (Devi Sri Prasad) once again came out with a chart-busting music with almost all songs being hit and further consolidated number one position.   He did a cameo playing sexaphone in one of the duets and he has good screen presence.  Pawan Kalyan's  first singing experiment also gone well with fans.  

It is going to be a feast for PK’s fans after long wait for the release which was held up due to Telengana issue and even those who are not PK’s fans like me too will enjoy this movie.   There were about 15 shows in different parts of Delhi and theaters were jam packed on Sunday.   After a very long time I saw such a frenzy created by fans – whistling, shouting and yelling at every dialogue, dance and fight of their favourite star PK.  The movie no doubt is going to be a super duper hit and further consolidated PK’s position post Gabbar Singh’ and again open up heated discussion who is No. 1 Pawan Kalyan or Mahesh Babu.  

I am sure Hindi producers will be queuing up for remake rights and Salmaan or an Akhay or even a Sharukh (after the hit of Chennai express) will love to feature in the remake.   But unlike in Telugu film industry, lack of star comedians in Hindi films now like yesteryear Mehmood, Omprakash and Jony Walker  will hurt such propositions.  

s. Prabhakar

30.9.2013