Superstar Rajinikanth’s highly-anticipated village drama, Annaatthe is dubbed as Peddhanna in Telugu. Directed by Siva, the film had a simultaneous release in both languages today. Let’s analyse it.
Story: Veeranna(Rajinikanth) a village president unconditionally loves his sister Kanakamahalakshmi(Keerthy Suresh). As Mahalakshmi wraps up her studies, Veeranna decides to marry her and fixes a match with the nearby village landlord’s(Prakash Raj) brother. But just before the wedding, Mahalakshmi elopes from the house with her lover to Kolkata. Later, Veeran comes to know that his sister is facing problems in Kolkata but will start watching her activities by following like a shadow. What is Mahalakshmi’s problem? How will Veeranna solve his sister’s problems? Forms the main USB of the film.
Performances: Rajinikanth is super energetic on the screen and did his part in a convincing manner. His hairstyling and dressing remains us of 90s Rajinikanth films and take back to those golden days. Apart from his typical mannerisms, Rajini gave a neat performance in all the emotional scenes.
Keerthy Suresh is a plus point for the film as her natural acting during the emotional scenes in the second half brings depth to the proceedings to an extent.
Nayanthara is captivating but her role is restricted to a couple of scenes. Abhimanyu Singh and Jagapathi Babu are decent okay in their negative roles but sadly fails to create any impact.
Kushboo, Meena, Prakash Raj and comedian Soori are okay with their respective roles but they are not utilized in a proper manner.
Technicalities: Music by D Imman is laud and goes over the top at times. While the songs fails to register, his background score lacks freshness in it.
The cinematography by Vetri is alright as he captured the village set up in a beautiful manner. Editing by Ruben is okay.
Telugu version dialogues are written in a decent manner but the dubbing work for all the actors is totally disappointing as the lip-synch fails to match with the dialogues.
Production values are decent and so is the case with the premise created for the movie.
Analysis: Vishwasam fame Siva directs Peddhanna. When the project was announced two years back, including Rajinikanth fans, the general public also had high expectations on Siva’s directional skills. Instead of delivering a decent product, Siva has completely disappointed with his narrative part.
The idea of making a film based on beaten to death brother-sister bonding is fine but Siva and his team would have focused on writing a gripping screenplay to give a better output. Though the brother-sister involving scenes between Rajini and Keerthy Suresh is narrated in a decent manner, lack of proper presentation and outdated treatment comes as a major minus for the film.
To conclude, Peddhanna is an emotional family drama that struggles with demerits such as outdated, ages-old treatment and predictable screenplay. Though Keerthy Suresh’s acting and her thread with Rajinikanth are plus points, template action sequences in the latter half dilute the soul of the movie.
Verdict: Noisy drama!
Rating: 1.5/5
