Ami Thumi

There are many Telugu comedies that tried to present a social issue in a comical way. The silly nature of an unaltered comedy helps them land the satire and that’s the beauty of choosing such a genre to speak about the social issue. Here, Ami Thumi tries to do that in the initial reels and then de-rails completely into situational comedy leaving the satire behind. Let’s see how much of it worked …

Plot : Janardhan (Tanikella Bharani) thinks old traditions are good and finds a ‘Chilipi’ family that follows one tradition gladly, that is, marrying a woman who is rich without caring for her looks. Following the tradition, Sri Chilipi (Vennela Kishore) lands in Janardhan’s house to marry his daughter Deepika (Eesha Rebba). But she wants to marry a Sales Manager Ananth (Adivi Sesh). On the other hand, Maya (Aditi) likes her father so much that she even decides to sacrifice her love, Vijay (Avasarala Srinivas). Her father Govardhan and Janardhan are friends turned foes. Unable to choose between them Maya decides to become a nun. So what happens next? Will she become a nun? How will ‘Chilipi’ problem be sorted? Watch it on screen to know more.

Performances : Tanikella Bharani the usually reliable man doesn’t turn up his good sense of humour. He irritates you to the length and fails to ignite right sense of belonging for the movie. It highly depends on him but the writer doesn’t give him enough meat to perform as well. Eesha Rebba gets more screentime than she deserves. She tries to showcase her acting skills but beyond a point her comic timing gives up as well. Adivi Sesh is one actor who can deliver a good performance provided writer backs him up with good enough character strength. Here he lacks that and even his character is just there to fill the screen as a hero.

Another lead, Avasarala Srinivas too doesn’t have much to do but to show up in some dresses and ride in a car. Aditi the debutant, doesn’t leave an impression. Vennela Kishore gets a good character and he livens up the theatre with his performance. He uses all the scenes written for him and lands the punches without a doubt. He is the only one cast member who doesn’t overact in trying to look alive on screen. Shyamala Devi doesn’t bring her A-game in this movie.

Technicalities : The basic strength of any comedy is freshness. For a concept to work or for a joke to get maximum response it needs to have certain freshness or an actor who lands the punch pitch perfect. Here Indraganti’s script lacks freshness and in his execution, he highly depends on old tricks in the bag. He tries to move forward with lots and lots of conversations, word puns and tongue twisters to generate comedy but misses out on genuine laugh out loud elements.

His entire old world premise reminds us of movies like Vinodam, Ishq and also leaves us with a hope that the director can find his form of Astha Chemma and not Bandipotu. But he fails in creating some fresh ideas in an old premise and the writing that started as a satire ends up not even justifying the title.Mani Sharma composed the soundtrack of the movie keeping many old english comedies in mind. At times the soumdtrack syncs with the flow but mostly it feels as unnecessary as the outstreched comic scenes. P.G Vinda delivers lovely images and also creates good enough tone for the movie. Marthand K Venkatesh should be thanked for keeping the runtime down to 2 hours.

Analysis : The movie tries to deliver a good enough satire but in its penchant to create more and more hilarious situations, the writing de-rails. Indraganti Mohan Krishna once again forgets what he has set out to deliver with this comedy of errors and premise to doesn’t help him create anything new. Right from Preminchi Choodu (old) these sort of comedies have been attempted by many and had Indraganti been in best of his form, he might have been able to make a better comedy. On the whole, the movie ends up being a lacklustre attempt at making a satire comedy.

Rating : 2/5