Movie: Akhil
Rating: 2.5/5
Banner: Sresth Movies
Cast: Akhil Akkineni, Sayesha Saigal, Rajendra Prasad, Brahmanandam, Saptagiri, Hema, Mahesh Manjrekar, Vennela Kishore and others
Story: Veligonda Srinivas
Dialogues: Kona Venkat
Music: Anup Rubens, S S Thaman
Background Score: Mani Sharma
Cinematography: Amol Rathod
Editing: Gowtham Raju
Presented by: Nikitha Reddy
Produced by: Sudhakar Reddy, Nithin
Screenplay and direction: V V Vinayak
Release Date: November 11, 2015
In the recent times, one movie that created huge hype and raised high expectations is Akhil Akkineni's debut movie Akhil. The younger son of top star Nagarjuna has great fan following among women with his good looks and the trailers and songs of his first film have further upped the curiosity. Some even said he is the next superstar.
So, let’s see if Akhil lives to the expectations and if he creates fireworks with his debut film…
Story:
The story starts off with a little flashback about some science and how a particular metal ball made by ancient Indian sages after various calculations is the savior of Earth from the harsh rays of Sun scorching it up. Well, they safeguard it with an African tribe on the equator line.
When a Russian mafia leader comes to steal the stone, an African youth takes it, runs away and hides it somewhere.
On the other hand in India, Akhil an orphan who leads life by participating in fights for money falls for the charms of a bright student Divya (Sayesha) who happens to be mafia leader’s daughter.
For some reason, both Divya and Akhil move to Europe and there they dragged into this battle for Jua. How Akhil saves Divya and turns as hero in this battle is the rest of the drama.
Artistes’ Performances:
Akhil has danced like a dream. His dance steps are on par with the best of the dancers in the country. He is good at action stunts too. He is a good looking actor too. Apart from these qualities, unfortunately there is not much to talk about his acting skills. A lot needs to be improved.
Sayesha Saigal has appealing face and she very hyper active when it wasn’t needed.
Rajendra Prasad is okay. Mahesh Manjrekar and the other villain gang have given very bad performances. Saptagiri and Brahmanandam have generated some laughs. Vennela Kishore is good.
Video: Watch Akhil Movie Public Talk
Technical Excellence:
Technically, the movie has all the advantages with first rate cinematography, high standard production values, and good music.
Amol Rathod’s visuals are cool and his camera has presented both the newcomers Akhil and Sayesha beautifully. The music is appealing – ‘Akkineni Akkineni’, ‘The title song’ and ‘Padesave...’ songs are the pick of the album. The songs are also captured well.
The movie is just two hours runtime, yet it seems a bit lengthy. Fights are good. Songs choreography by Johnnie are excellent.
Highlights:
- Akhil’s amazing dances
- Beautiful locations
- Music
- Production values
Drawbacks:
- Weak screenplay
- Logic-less scenes and plot
- Uninteresting first half
- Lack of gripping narration
Analysis:
Since it is Akhil Akkineni’s first movie and raised humongous expectations among audiences and the trade circles, everyone was hoping to see a cracker of entertainment. Or even a regular but decent entertainer like Vinayak’s earlier movie Alludu Seenu. Akhil seemed a Deepavali bomb to explode in the box-office. But, what we get to see is totally different.
Though the concept of Jua stone is something novel, rest of the drama, the romantic track, the comedy scenes have treaded the path of formula.
Like what Puri Jagannadh did while launching Ram Charan in Chirutha, Vinayak has done similar with Akhil by showing Akhil’s strengths to the core than telling a gripping entertainer.
Vinayak has succeeded in launching Akhil as a star with high dance and fight skills. Thanks to Vinayak, we now know what Akhil can do in his future films but the movie doesn’t work at all with narration goes completely aimless.
The first half of the movie has focused on Akhil’s dances and establishing romance between Akhil and Sayesha and ends with ineffective bang. Second half has some entertainment though but it is not effective either.
Enough attention has not been put on the story and screenplay as the plot has many loopholes and screenplay doesn’t grab the audiences’ interest. We are only glued to the seats when songs appear. Rest of the movie is lethargic and pointless. Is it really directed by V V Vinayak we get doubt sometimes. This is weakest film in his entire career.
Some of the dialogues by Kona are good but they are not that effective overall. Senior director Vinayak who is normally good at making entertaining movies has gone completely wrong this time. His handling of the African episodes is pretty bad to say the least.
All in all, Akhil is show reel movie of Akhil’s dancing skills. Other than that it offers only boredom, nothing else.
Bottomline: Dance Baby Dance
(Venkat can be reached [email protected] or https://twitter.com/greatandhranews)
