29th August 2005

A few months back, Athanokkade and Bhadra got released in a gap of one week. I had also written a article on both the movies on Idlebrain stating that Athanokkade has been declared a super hit film right from day one and after a bit of initial confusion, Bhadra will also emerge as a super hit. Our predictions turned out to be true and both the films were huge box office hits.

History seems to have repeated again in the form of Athadu and Andhrudu, which were released again with one-week gap. Athadu has been declared a super hit right from day one. Even before the release of this movie, many believed that Trivikram had it in him to emerge as a successful director and luckily for him, Mahesh also seemed to be the one who believed in it. Without going into the demerits of Trivikram's maiden venture "Nuvve Nuvve", it can be said convincingly that as a director of the film, he has successfully portrayed the conflict between the characters of Prakash Raj (Father), Shriya (daughter) and Tarun (Shriya's character's love interest) in the film. Before "Athadu", almost all the movies, which he wrote, and the one movie which he directed were movies with soft stories. By choosing the Action genre for Athadu, Trivikram has increased his versatility both as a writer as well as a director. One more interesting thing that could be said for the movie is the judgment sense of Mahesh. Before I saw Athadu, it was difficult to imagine Mahesh with his cute looks and positive image, that he could don the role of playing a professional killer role who kills without any personal motivation (except of course money). Still Mahesh agreed to don this role believing in the ability of Trivikram and - himself and the results were there for all to see.

Technical qualities for Athadu were superb. Chiranjeevi was very right when he congratulated Mahesh that this is one film, which will showcase the talent of Telugu films in comparison to Tamil films. Due credit has to be given to the cinematographer KV Guhan for his slick photography. Trisha suited her role very well. Though Manisharma scored good tunes for the film, I felt the songs (in second half) were interrupting the film somewhat. The first song in the film is simply terrific. I have never seen a film in recent times (except the fight in Karate School in the film Aparichithudu), where the fight sequences were picturised in such a excellent manner with so much entertainment value.especially the fight in fields in Tanikella Bharani's presence and the fight with Brahmaji. I felt the technical values in the climax fight in the church were brilliant, but a higher dosage of some emotional aspect in this fight could have been better.

While "Yagnam" established Gopichand as a Hero, Andhrudu is a film, which helps him consolidate his position as a Hero stronger. ML Kumar Chowdary produced Andrudu. With Gopichand's image, body language, it is very difficult to make a story with love element playing a pivotal role. In Andhrudu he has underplayed the role so well that he succeeds in emoting the love scenes very well. This movie also tries to establish Paruchuri Murali as a versatile director. His maiden venture "Nee Sneham" was a love story. "Pedhababu" was a film with mother sentiment made with Village backdrop. For the first time ever a Telugu film tries to have the state of Bihar as backdrop. Adequate care has been taken so that the scenes in Bihar looks somewhat authentic and also one could notice a difference between the faction backdrop of Rayalaseema that we saw in previous films and this film. Making a film with Bihar as backdrop is not easy. In order to engross the audience to the movie and entertain them, the characters of Sunil and Lakshmipathi have been very well utilized.

I felt that the climax fight was a bit let down with more dosage of graphics used. However the earlier fight sequence when Gopichand enters the Village of Sayaji Shinde and overpowers all of them using brains was very good. Gowri Pandit who was introduced in this movie suited her role very well. By having K.Vishwanath as the father of Gopichand is a good move as it helped to make Gopichand appear more softer to enable him to underplay certain emotions. Music by Kalyani Malik is also nice. The songs did not interrupt the story line, which is a positive point with this film.

In Telugu film industry among the younger generation Heroes who have mass image associated with them, we have several heroes like Mahesh, Pawan Kalyan, Prabhas, NTR, Kalyan Ram, Allu Arjun, Nithin, etc. most of these Heroes act on an average one film or at most two films per year. Since in the present scenario, it does not look like these Heroes are going to act in more number of movies per year the other option is to have new Heroes with mass image added to this category. Sukumar after the stupendous hit Arya is yet to start filming his second movie. The reasons for this could be many. But a possible reason could be lack of availability of dates for Heroes that fall under this category. Talented Directors like Sukumar instead of waiting for the dates of these Heroes can opt for a Hero like Gopichand.

Finally I have to say that these two films have added significance as far as Telugu Film Industry is concerned in that… whereas Athadu is a film which is likely to take Mahesh to the top position answering the question "After Chiranjeevi - Whom?" Mahesh has looks, talent and image. What he needs is more number of consolidated hits like Athadu to take him to that position. But it still remains to be seen, how much collections Andhrudu can make, what with Athadu looming large on Andhrudu's shoulder. However Andhrudu successfully establishes Gopichand as a Hero with mass image commanding good openings. After Andhrudu I think star directors will look at him more seriously.

Sriram Thota
[email protected]

Also read Sriram's other articles
Smoking is injurious to films
Athanokkade Bhadra
Chandramukhi - neither Basha not Baba