"Atharintiki Daaredi" (Telugu) Movie Review

"Atharintiki Daaredi" is a smashing film power-packed with terrific performances by Power Star Pawan Kalyan, Nadia, Rao Ramesh, Brahmanandam, MS Narayana and Ali. It is definitely the most awaited film of the year because it involves star director and ace wordsmith Trivikram who can make the screen dance with his style of comedy, emotions and words that stir your senses. After a long drought since Ravi Teja's film, Tollywood's magic comes back with "AD" and credit must go to the entire team that made a family entertainer dripping with action, comedy, romance and emotions. 

"Atharintiki Daaredi" is a familiar phrase in Telugu which is played with babies held up close in arms - it begins with a few poetic lines and ends with an affectionate hug that tickles the baby. The film also oozes out the ticklish tone filled with one man's quest to find a place in the hearts of the people residing in his paternal aunt's home in India.  Siddhu (Pawan Kalyan) is the heir to a billion dollar industrial empire in Milan, Italy run by his father (Mukesh Rushi) and grand-father (Bomman Irani). His grand-father has become a vegetable on a wheel-chair but his only wish in life is to see his daughter who he threw out of his home because she dared to marry someone despised by him. That couple, Nadia and Rao Ramesh, now live in India with a huge family and their pretty daughters - Samantha and Praneetha. Pawan Kalyan vows to get his aunt back to see his grandfather. How does Pawan Kalyan charm the household by first masquerading as a Chauffeur and later on, as Siddhu as his aunt already knows is the story with a narrative that runs like a non-stop comedy show with a rich assemblage of characters  - the usual characters seen in a Trivikram film except two missing members - Tanikella Bharani and Dharmavarapu Subramanyam. A major plus is the music by DSP, almost all the songs including the one sung by Pawan Kalyan are hummable with high melody score, one song that shows DSP on screen with Pawan borrows the kinky style of Ilayaraja in one "Charanam".

Trivikram has returned to a thorough family theme that shows only the non-invasive villainy for the sole purpose of showcasing Pawan Kalyan in some fabulous stunts. Otherwise, the film doesn't have villains in a conventional sense, most of the screenplay is between the central characters of Pawan Kalyan, Nadia, Rao Ramesh and Bomman Irani. That's a healthy comeback for Trivikram because that puts him miles ahead of the rest of the pack of directors who tend to be caught up with crass commercial sensibilities. A Tollywood film today runs on few pillars  - narrative that runs with a straight bat, comedy that fires on all fours, characterisation that can run its full course with consistency and distinctiness for each principal and peripheral character that shows up as minutes pass, screenplay that ties you to your seat, technical mastery over the aspects that make up the medium- cinematography, shot selection, logicality, editing, aesthetics and of course, music. Besides all these, dialogues that sync so well with the many worlds we live in daily life. In almost all these aspects, Trivikram has been a pro who is at the peak  and this film is a fine showcase to all those who want to see him taste mega success. The thing with Trivikram, I noticed from his first film (Is that a film with actor Suresh, "Praarthana" or Venu ("Churunavvutho"?) that he has this ability to weave a narrative with a built-in thermostat that guides when to explode and when to stay under a leash, it is almost like a sleeping volcano that erupts only at the cusp of a major twist or defining moment of the story. Even if his filmography in the earlier films have been occasionally nativised adaptations from Hollywood films or best-seller novels ("Manmadhudu" was a Mel Gibson film, "Athadu" was a Sylvestor Stallone film, "Nuvvu Naaku Nacchaav" was a Ben Stiller film; try google out yourselves), his films have a shelf life that ensures repeat magic on successive telecasts on TV or your own DVD re-views. In this film, Trivikram falters only with editing  - he might have had constraints in chiselling huge portions which do not add value like that club song with Mumtaaz or those long Brahmanandam tracks which could have got shorter to make a point. Clearly, 169 minutes is a bit long even if the director, to quote his own words in the film hasn't told a "story of Ben Hur in Burra Katha format". 

Trivikram has ensured every character in the film gets a line that makes them stand out. For a change, he has breathed new life into the characters of MSN and Ali. Nadia as the title character "Athagaaru" has given a stylish and dignified performance making her role one of the most nuanced "Aunt" roles in Telugu Cinema, never once loses class in her portrayal. Rao Ramesh gives another well-articulated performance, he and Pawan Kalyan together get the best lines of the film, but more on Pawan later.  Brahmanandam's performance is sometimes puerile sometimes garrulous but overall just-above average. His best laughs come in the elongated skit of Ahalya, Gautama and Indra. Between Samantha and Praneetha, Praneetha has a better screen presence and looks more gorgeous even if she appears in one song. Samantha will fade out faster than a one-trick pony at this rate of exposure, pun unintended, even if she is a lucky mascot.

Pawan Kalyan seems to have a magical chemistry with Trivikram that sets the screen on fire. As a practioner of Vipassana meditation, martial arts and Zen Buddhism, Pawan has shown a lot of class, effort and style in this role with a body language that's a hit with his fans. His dialogue delivery has been a unique trademark that pack a punch in every scene, of course penned by the director; he seems to have outgrown some of his whimsical mannerisms as he gets quite comfortable under the skin of roles of a lover boy, responsible heir and a star performer amidst other comedians. His dancing skills, surprise, have also improved considerably even if he chooses to uncomplicate his movements, its a sign of a maturing actor who is aging but at peace with his world and his body chemistry. If "Jalsa" has been voted one of the best all-time Telugu hits, then "Athaarintiki Daaredi" will be another feather for Pawan Kalyan because his contribution if the film does well will be huge. Obviously, he has developed as an actor a quixotic mixture of non-chalance, innocence, poise and confidence that can sometimes ooze out more doses but so what if the fans like him. He has experimented with choking scenes in "Teenmaar" and he repeats more in "AD" which will connect with families well. In quite a few scenes of "AD",  like in "Jalsa", Pawan shows a repertoire of improvisations in acting that make him an explosive actor almost impossible to predict. His stunts have always held out a special charm because he is a warrior of sorts in real life too. In this film, Peter Hein composes stunts but the best stunts come later, the first two stunts are wasted. There is a jingle thats already popular sung by Pawan Kalyan himself in the film thats uproarious and electrifying that comes at a particular climactic comic scene with Brahmanandam. 

"AD" bears the stamp of Trivikram and the magic of Pawan Kalyan and makes it a riot  that will make it one of the most watched family entertainers ever. It is generally clean, upholds the traditions of entertainment of Trivikram  (even if some themes recur from his earlier films) and gives a rich treat of wholesome family fare. The triumph of this film will ensure directors and producers pay special attention to family themes. At a time when Telugu pride is wounded and at an all-time low, this is a proud showcase for a fun-filled, chimerical entertainer that makes you cry and laugh out loud.  My rating: 4.25/5

Old Theaters in Hyderabad - Some Nostalgia

Tarakarama 70mm which until recently degenerated into exhibiting B-grade movies is finally re-opening again with renovation and new-age sounds for the cine-lovers in Kachiguda. Most likely it is going to be the first movie of 2013 that will be screened – “Nayak” starring Ramcharan Tej. It is next to the newly opened INOX (earlier known as Parameshwari and Maheshwari). I have had some great memories associated with most of these single-screen theatres which were all within a kilometer of our residence in Narayanguda. We used to be excited by the prospects of going to every movie around our home with large cutouts of heroes. Shanti 70mm, Deepak theatre were the closest theatres at that time, literally a stone’s throw. There were also Kumar 70mm which used to screen some of the finest English films and I remember watching "Ten Commandments" and "Omar Mukthaar" there. Shalimar theater never came of age and by the time it did, it started showing sleazy movies and eventually became a Marriage Function Hall.




Shanti has had an amazing run - hit after hit, many flms running for 50 days to 100 days so it was boring as we were impatient every Friday to catch up with the latest movie. That’s when having a handful of theatres in vicinity helped a film-obsessed family like ours. Shanti had a magnificent façade, and an elevation that makes it look like a mansion that survived the ages. It had unlimited parking space for any wheeler you drove with, maintained smoking spaces way back in the 70s. It has one of the biggest screens even today and maintains the biggest number of A-class tickets. In those days, the theatre had a water pond, atleast two aquariums which used to intrigue us, and had two entrances which are serpentine ranches with a thick red carpet segueing the entire plinth area of the staircase sans steps. Walking up was as much a pleasure as walking down after the screening. Now, Shanti theatre has only one way staircase, the other staircase is shut for “strength” reasons, and has just one aquarium. The water pond is dry and abegging for maintenance. But the theatre remains a nonpareil for single-screen theatres. I always wondered, for a theatre of that space, you can have a multiplex the size of Cineplanet near Medchal road.


Srinivasa 35mm-Venkatesa 70mm (now converted into Legend Apartments) had some terrific movies celebrating many box-office hits. Venkatesha 70mm had an open ticket counter and a flat ranch for balcony tickets next to the A-class almost like “Vaikuntham complex” in TTD. Bapu uncle’s most famous mythological “Sampoorna Ramayanam” completed an year of running or so in Venkatesha 70mm and I remember even as a toddler being carried to the 100-day “Shatadinotsvam” of the movie. The last movie I watched there was even a Mani Ratnam film “Donga Donga”. Srinivasa 35 mm was more compact and carried many low-budget films especially films made by SV Krishna Reddy, Vijaya banner and Ramoji Rao which became blockbuster movies like “Yamaleela”, “Brindaavanam” and “Mayuri”.

Deepak theatre always struggled for good movies and most movies running there were re-runs of movies or second-releases. "Ekalavya" was one film starring Krishna which I remember amongst a few first-releases there. A golden opportunity for Deepak theatre owners came even in early 2000s for reviving the fortunes of “failed” perception about the theatre. It was for exhibiting a successful movie made by Gunnam Gangaraju called “Aithe” which became a sleeper hit in those days. The owners were so hell-bent on ruining their chances of success and adding to their woes, that the movie which was running well was removed for some nondescript dubbed English movie. Since those days, the theatre is winding down and is on way to make way for another Apartments.

Basant Talkies was another lesser known but was still walkable for us. I remember watching some great entertainers by Superstar Krishna in that theatre. Most of those films were multi-starrers, surprise, not at all uncommon, as they are now. I remember watching atleast one movie of Krishna co-starred each with Thalaivar Rajnikanth and also with megastar Chiranjeevi. There was also a movie in Basanth Talkies starring Chiranjeevi and Sridevi, in which Chiranjeevi is a rapist and Sridevi, the victim claws her way back into forcing Chiranjeevi to marry her. I don’t think this kind of justice is desired by anybody in today’s world but those were the stories those days and the films. Basant Talkies has since become a mega-posh apartment called “S.V.Basanth” and celebrated is third or fourth anniversary recently. But the memories of Basanth talkies remain fresh for us, it had some great action movies mostly by Doondi and Krishna combination.

Then there was a theatre closer than any of the above those days which had a great run almost parallel to the legendary English movie-screening theatres like Sterling, Skyline and Liberty. It used to be a theatre called “Kishore”. The theatre had a swashbuckling entrée one day. It was advertised in all English dailies and the movie was called “Asha” or something starring Jitendra and actress Reena Roy and another heroine. We didn’t go for the movie but the theatre became an addiction soon for us. It kept rotating movies with amazing regularity. There was an ANR and Jayaprada movie called “Bucchibabu” with great songs but it became a flop. We didn’t go for that too, surprisingly. Our chance came for some James Bond movie. I think it was “The Spy Who loved me” and we fell in love with the theatre. It had long steps leading to the entry door of the theatre, and the ticket counter was so contiguous to the main door that you could pick it up and decide whether to go in or out depending on whether it was “housefull” or not. That arrangement made us feel very good and very special, we never saw such arrangements anywhere except maybe “Liberty” theatre. Kishore theatre had some great releases and I remember also a spine-chilling experience of watching a movie called “Alien”. My dad was away on a tour and my mother was in no mood to watch an English film but the theatre was so close to our residence - we used to literally come home during Interval time. She goaded me to take my younger brother to the movie. The movie was frightening and turned out to be one of the eeriest movies I saw in my childhood, I was courageous all through but my brother gave up and closed his eyes everytime some creature erupted out of somebody’s stomach in the spacecraft or space. I don’t remember anything about the movie except seeing my brother frightened and crying sometimes and this alien creature wreaking havoc on one being after another. My brother was pleading me to take him home. But I remained till the end as we never learnt walking out was an option midway in a cinema. That has become ingrained till this day, except that there were two movies which I never could sit through and one of them surprisingly was “Khushi” of Pawan Kalyan. The last movie we watched at Kishore after it was re-opened as “Sai Kishore” was the Walt Disney film “Alladin”. There was a time when my father advised the owners and prepared a project report converting it into a better complex for shopping while being an exhibition centre for movies. Alas, the owners never acted upon  the project report  of my dad, never paid him, and soon, they went down the drain. Later, the complex became Panchavati supermarket and some EAMCET centre but the bulk of the property has since become litigant and now languishing.

Then of course, Parameshwari and Maheshwari were as close to our home and were easily the pickiest of the theatres in those days. It was the only theatre in Hyderabad to have an escalator and boy! it was an exhilirating experience. The construction of the theatre and the days of exhibition were always associated with plenty of hype and glamor. It had the best image those days, even better than Sangeet in Secunderabad and soon became the most coveted theatre in twin cities before multiplexes came on stage. “Hum Aapke Hain Kaun” was the last of the films I remember having watched, and like many, we watched it many times. But there was a class differentiation between Parameshwari crowd and Maheshwari audience. Maheshwari was on top, and you had a majestic ranch leading to the entrance, there were atleast 200 youth dressed in gawdy clothes those days, hanging out on those ranches, giving the impression that it is always “houseful”. The movie which my parents saw was a special screening of the film “Sharaabi” invited by T.Subbirami Reddy himself for a special gathering of guests. Parking was shared with many other shops in the complex and there was also a funny, long “linga” type structure with the crampiest of parking spaces. It was the Bank of India Regional office and I remember having gone there a couple of times for an “audit” of the branch and staring mostly at the crowds waiting to catch up with the films at the two theatres. It is always a mystery, why the two theatres fell to a more artificial, blood-red compact complex of INOX. I watched a slew of movies like “Genius” and “Ko Ante Koti” in INOX recently, but the soul of theatre audience was missing, everybody is so well-behaved that I felt sleepy after some time. I wondered whether I was at the theatre or at an opera where everybody wears a stiff upper lip and hardly enjoyed the spontaneity of emotions that can engulf a crowd in an old-screen theatre.

The theatre that was closer to us was Tarakarama 70mm which I started this nostalgic account with. It was owned by N.T.R family and it had a nice night-lit statue of deities at the entrance. N.T.Rama Rao in those days commissioned Ramayana story in pictures by Bapu uncle and that was spread over neon-lit ceilings spread over 2500 sq.feet in the main lobby. It still remains there,if I remember, the last movie I don’t even remember in this theatre. Tarakarama has had some great hits in those days, but the two movies I remember vividly have been Amitabh Bacchan’s “Don” and one movie based on Yaddanapudi Sulochana Rani’s novel called “Agni Poolu”. According to hearsay, N.T.Rama Rao built quite a few theatres for his children – boys and girls. The boys’ names were bearing “Krishna” as surname (Balakrishna, Harikrishna and so on) while the girls in the Nandamuri family were surnamed as “..Easwari” (Bhunvaneshwari, Purandareshwari and so on). Tarakarama was as well maintained as Ramakrishna 35mm and 70mm those days. NTR had divided his property amongst his dozen odd children but the will of the family, it seems, never allowed any family members to dispose off the property at anytime for commercial resons. As a descendent and a beneficiary of NTR Family, you can enjoy the rentals and the benefits of ownership but you can never change the nature of the original property nature. Which is why amongst all theatres, NTR family-owned theatres never changed the nature. There was a Ramakrishna Horticultural Studios at nacharam, an NBK enclave housing the subregister’s office near Musheerabad X Roads, a Ramakrishna theatre complex in Abids and of course, Tarakarama theatre amongst many properties. I wonder whether such wills are feasible in law or practical in the fast-changing dynamics of the Real Estate market in Hyderabad. There are others like Odeon, Sudarshan 70mm which are converting to apartments. But Tarakarama is all set to re-open its second innings and for cine-lovers, its another complex which will hopefully give a good experience like Tivoli 2.0.

A few other theatres I remember were Royal Talkies which aired the famous "Shankarabharanam", Dilshad, Zamarrud, Santosh, Sapna, and of course Surya 35mm and 70mm. Surya has aired some of the best English movies too outside of Skyline theatre, and has now converted to Prajay Apartments. Growing up in Hyderabad gave a great experience for movie-goers thanks to all these old-style theaters which are now either being replaced by apartments or by multiplexes.I hope many of you will reminisce the stuff I outlined above. Do share your experiences, anyways.

"Businessman" is indeed a hit!

Its now final - "Businessman" is a hit amongst the movies released for Sankranti in Tollywood.  ("Bodyguard" is also an average hit and has its supoort and patronage but thats not sufficient to upstage "Businessman"). And Mahesh Babu seems to be the New No.1 in Tollywood. Collections don't lie - from Rs.13 crs. gross +satellite rights of Rs.7.27 crs. It has already made money for the distributors and producers. Credit goes to both Mahesh and Puri for snatching a quick and cool hit - with tight schedule and tighter control on costs. If the trend continues this year, looks like Tollywood will be on a song because of more multli-starrers planned and faster rotation of reels between Superstars and technicians. If heroes like NTR, Mahesh, Prabhas act in 4-5 films per year and compete with the likes of Ravi Teja and Allari Naresh in more productions per annum - it is the best thing to happen for Tollywood desperate for more churnouts and more hits and more employability for its crew and cast. Last year, Tollywood saw a unique statistics. The no. of dubbed films in Telugu was 120 in 2011 whereas the no.of straight films in Tollywood were 118. That should tell how the technicians of Tollywood would have fared. Well begun is half the victory..So the tidings will be glad for another busy movie season coming up in February where many Star films are expected to release. Cheers Tollywood and Telugu Cinema.