Appatlo Okadundevadu

When chips are down you either chose the easiest way out or the difficult path. Well with the choice you make your destiny is decided. What if you take a wrong turn and end up in the soup? How can you come out of it? Can redemption work?

Plot : One journalism enthusiast Ria (Sasha Singh) chancing the story of a failed cricketer Railway Raju (Sree Vishnu) reaches Hyderabad and starts meeting people connected to him. One Jail inmate starts explaining to her what was Raju. Railway Raju is an upcoming cricket player who looks to break through into Ranji Trophy team of Hyderabad. But his plans are spoiled by Imtiaz Ali (Nara Rohit) who has a personal vendetta against Naxalites. Railway Raju’s sister is married to Naxal south india head and to trap her Imtiaz Ali tries everything in his hand. One day he traces out link between Railway Raju and his sister, he asks him to join his side. On the other hand Raju loves Nitya (Tanya Hope) and she is used as a pawn by Bhagavan Das (Jeeva) to extract money from him. Imtiaz Ali plays his move perfectly to let Raju realise his mistake. In a frustration with life events Raju kills Bhagavan Das. What transforms next should be seen on silver screen.

Performances : Sree Vishnu gets the role with major cream but his casual delivery of lines and clueless expressions in trying to imitate body language of several earlier films Gangsters like Kamal Haasan and Sanjay Dutt. He could have done with his own version of the character with his understanding. A huge opportunity missed. Naara Rohit does the similar kind of acting like he normally does to show grit and with that one expression he looks like he is trying hard. Rajeev Kanakala, Jeeva, Ajay were wasted in meatless roles. Tanya Hope and Sasha Singh were given good roles but they wasted opportunity here. Prabhas Srinu and Brahmaji try their best to rise above the script but fall prey for the immature execution. Well on the whole a huge opportunity missed by the cast.

Technicalities : Cinematography looks not great not good but a highly ok job. In trying to create the time period of early 90’s he fails miserably. He could have done really well in execution and add some more detail and vigour to the proceedings. Editing does seem a bit scratchy but the end 20 minutes of the movie were highly saved by some good editing. Music by Sai Karthik was highly forgettable and he misses the beat often. Back ground score by Suresh Bobbili is very very ok and mediocre. Even though it was medium budget movie the simple things like this would have given it a totality. The film lacks highly in this point.

Story Screenplay and Dialogues, in simple words Script written by Sagar K Chandra seems to take heavy influences from the movies like Catch Me If You Can, Eeshwar Allah, Vastav, Gayam, Satya, Company, 3 Idiots and many more films. There are one or two lines that were seriously good and several times even though there was a chance to shine as a writer he is brought down by his own words. As a director, his choices to include a famous Cadbury ad, News reels style of story telling shows he has creative ideas but they all need to be showcased in a streamlined engaging way. But he looses focus and interest right from the word go. It is a visual medium and some stories does depend on visuals more than others. It all looks like he settled down for the first best shot he got and never really tried to put in complete effort in developing and evolving the characters and movie on screen.

Analysis : The movie written and Directed by Sagar Chandra could have easily been one of the best of the year but fails to capitalise on the content and characters it created. The world of Raju and Imtiaz are highly unbelievable and disconnected. If the director and team had put in more effort on executing the written word with much more sincerity, the movie could have been even better and greatly enjoyable. Watch it if you have enough time to kill this weekend.

Rating : 2/5

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