Akharleni Arupulu Kekalu & Gola - `Akhanda -2’

(Review by S. Prabhakar)

 

There is a  हिंदी मुहावरा"आ बैल मुझे मार" (Aa bail mujhe maar) (which means inviting trouble to ourselves).    Going to a Balayya movie is nothing less than that.    Most of the Non Balayya fans (which includes me) very well know that we can hardly expect anything new or different from his movies.   Sometimes, though we know a movie (almost every movie of Balayya) could be bad, we still dare to check to see how bad it is.  In his entire career, there were 3-4 movies of Balayya which I could tolerate, and Akhanda-1 is one of them.   Going by Akhanda-1, that too the Akhanda role and the high hype given as saviour of Sanathana Dharma, I thought Boyapati-Balayya magic may work one more time.   But it is far from it and the die-hard Jai Balayya Brigade can only stomach whatever has been churned by Boyapati-Balayya combo. 

 

As a concept, the topic chosen is not bad -  Chinese joining hands with a corrupt politician whose father has lost power and son trying to grab power at any cost including dividing Hindus and making them lose faith in Hinduism (any resemblances to Rahul Gandhi is not a coincidence).  He lets loose a virus in Maha Khumb Mela and tries to shake the faith of Hindus by propagating that God has not come to their rescue and our Akhanda not only saves the anti-dot to the virus but also gives liberal sermons on Hindutva, Sanatana Dharma.   However, the execution falters, and there is hardly anything to hold the audience's attention.   Like Rajni movie directors, KGF and Sallar directors, Boyapati also suffers from his fixation on elevations.   How far can one be satisfied by stupid elevations, which are always larger than life and, beyond one point get on to your nerves.  

 

The good concept has not developed well due to a lack of depth in the story, poor dialogue writing,  and poor delivery by Balayya, full of stuttering, coupled with his brand of shouting and yelling without expressions or emotional depth in acting.   we cannot expect Balayya to deliver simple Telugu dialogue coherently; how can we expect him to deliver Sanskrit dialogue? He and Boyapati can only understand and appreciate, added to it the non-synchronisation of his dialogue delivery with body language and movement makes it a total cartoon caricature.   Earlier there was Krishna, who even after acting in over 300 movies, could never improve his still statue-like pose before the camera in a side angle, weak and shivering voice, funny facial expressions in the name of acting and now we have Balayya who has acted in over 100 movies but still could not develop proper synchronisation between his dialogue delivery and body language – the final effect is always like a poorly dubbed Chenese movies of late 70s.    

 

Everything is bad about Akhanda-2 and there is nothing to write positively about it.   Another fixation Boyapati has is that he has to show two Balayyas, whether required or not.    There is hardly any role or relevance of the first Balayya in the movie, but he has wasted a good part of the first half on him, going through routine motions and one dance with the female lead of less than half his age, who thankfully gets killed and saves us from any more romantic scenes or songs with robot-like moving Balayya.  

 

The opening with Chenese villains (played well by Bengali actor Saswat Chatterjee and Bhutani actor Sanjay Tsheltrim)  raised some hope which was dashed the moment the first Balayya enters.    The Maha Khumb mela scenes (looked to be originally shot at the Mahakhumbh Mela) looked good, but the rest of Leh Ladhakh, Amarnath are all probably shot with green screen and were poorly executed.   Hope of movie picking up after the entry of Akhanda also did not happen with mindless elevations, ear-splitting loud dialogue delivery and the Boyapati Balayya patented curse and abusive words.  What could be more ridiculous than showing PM, HM, NIA helpless and instead of falling back on our powerful defence forces, hoping and praying that an Aghora will come and rescue the country.    I read somewhere that Boyapati and Balayya have screened some scenes to Yogi Adityanath and are saying that PM has shown interest in the movie and they are planning to show it to PM also.  He will split his hair if he sees such scenes and our Balayya acting.

The CAG are of pathetic quality, especially the backdrop of icy mountains, the gun battles and blasts are elementary and look like what we saw in movies in the 1990s.  All the scenes involving Adi Pinisetty were horribly handled; the scenes of SVR as a black magician in 70-year-old Patala Bhairavi look far better than in this movie.   Adi Pinisetti is completely wasted.  Thaman, the music director, as always, is loud; he could not use the Sanskrit slokas well as background music.     Someone like Keeravani could have done justice.   The seasoned action directors Ram Laxman did a pathetic job, showing throughout the movie with a trishul in hand Balayya faceing hundreds of Chinese army men with AK-47 and making a dozen fly in the air and bounce like a football on Balayya thumping his leg or trishul on the earth.  What better can they do when they have to handle a 65-year-old bulky hero.     Normally, people say when you go to a Boyapati-Balayya combo movie, you should leave your brain and rational thinking at home, but it seems both of them kept their brains in a deep freezer at home while going for the shooting of Akhanda-2, Boyapati, as a director, has been a complete let-down.

 

Overall, an average movie, which is being dubbed as a blockbuster in 4 days.   Today, in the afternoon show in Delhi, there were 12 people in a theatre with a capacity of over 350 seats.  As MLN says in Aagadu, flop movie directors hold more success meets.   I am absolutely shocked to listen to Gangadhara Shastry, pravachana karta,  going gaga about Boyapati and Balayya as Karanajanmulu to have made this movie.    As if Telugu is not enough, it has been released in many languages, including Hindi and Boyapati and Balayya made buffoons of themselves by their murderous Hindi in road shows in Mumbai.   After many decades wait, with the efforts of directors like Rajamouli, Kanaga Raj and Prashant Neel a pan-India market has been created, but if movies like OG and Akhanda-2 are released in theatres, the PAN India audience will lose interest in Telugu and South movies.   In the interest of PAN India movies, Boyapati, Balayya, and Pawan Kalyan should spare the North audience.   

 

Non-Balayya fans are cautioned to stay away from this movie, even on OTT release.   As far as `Jai Balayya Brigade’ is concerned, they have a lot to lap up and cheer and shout Jai Balayya in theatres (preferably single screen) till their vocal cords pain. 

 

S. Prabhakar

16.12.2025