Film: Ankitha Pallavi and Friends
Rating: 2.75/5
Banner: Innovation cinema
Cast: Nikhil Siddhartha, Megha Burman, Surya, Pradeep, Venu, Naresh, Sita and others
Music: Vinu Thomas
Cinematography: Dasari Malini
Director: Hari Yelleti
Producers: Ganji Kishore, Raghu
Release date: 05/09/2008
Story:
Ankith (Nikhil) is a guy who feels it difficult to complete his graduation but aspires to become a musician. He is possessed with a childhood friend Pallavi (Megha Burman) who completes her engineering studies.
Both of them move together and enjoy their love. But things change as Pallavi starts settling better and the influence of her friends make her change mind and keeps Ankith away. Ankith's friends also lead lives by dreaming about their dream future. One guy wishes to work for society as responsible Indian citizen, one guy wishes to go abroad and live happily and the other guy wishes to start a business with the investment his father gives him.
Finally what makes Pallavi go close to Ankith again? That forms the rest of the story and it is very easy to guess the climax here for anyone.
Presentation:
Nikhil Siddhartha played up to his standards as solo hero. But he needs to improve a lot still in diction and expression. It is good that he has energy levels and he has to maintain the same.
Actress Megha Burman wouldn't have been a Hobson's choice for this film. Basically, the role needs performance and that is absent in her. The dubbing used for her is also disgusting in many scenes.
Senior actor Naresh looked very slim in this film. Seetha is as usually looking very stout.
Others are ok in their shoes. Coming to technical departments, music is very weak. Cinematography and editing are good. Direction requires more insight into contemporary pulse of audiences.
Drawbacks:
Poor music despite the lead hero plays the role of an aspiring musician
Heaviness in subject
Old style of narration
Weak heroine with not-photogenic face
Idea to incorporate too many things
Plus Points:
Message orientation
Highlights:
'Enta Varaku vachchindi' episode spills laughs in theaters
First kiss scene between lead pair pulls interest of audiences
Dim Lights:
Hero spells out some poetic lines before singing the song 'aa navvu lenduko..i love you enduko'. That is over dosed.
The song that the hero composes when he gets first chance is cacophonous and disgusting. With that the audiences get disgust on hero's character instead of showing sympathy.
Analysis:
The film has to be analyzed from two sides. One is its content and the other is tuning with the trend and taste of target-audiences. The content in the film is good and it deserves positive rating only for that. But the execution part is heavy. And the target audiences as known to all are the college crowds and general youth. Majority of college students cannot bear the heaviness of more than two note books everyday. It is obvious that they shun heaviness in this movie as well. There will be very few those can get connected to the pathos, responsibility in life and other lectures from this movie.
The difference can be easily drawn with the response from young crowds in theaters between lighter moments and pathos scenes on screen.
The only pulling factor for this film is the hero from Happy Days. And the film has to struggle a lot to sustain for the content in it. It's like a useful moral science lesson in college. How many students would like to learn morals and responsibilities in life? And there are many scenes where the lead hero feels high about his love for music and ridicules software engineers. And majority of student crowds these days are running towards software jobs but not music. Thus the director unknowingly received the bane of majority in target group and his target-crowds turned meager.
The typical elements like a socially responsible guy (on of the four friends) marrying a pregnant girl and searching for a woman for his widowed father are something out of the box of youthful entertainers. It is good to show them in films but without expecting big commercial mileage out of that.
The focus is not kept in right way on the friends of Ankith, but only Ankith and Pallavi are projected. To be precise, the chemistry between Ankith and Pallavi forms major part of the film than the achievements of Ankith as shown in the film 'Satyam' of Sumanth.
It is clear that Hari Yelleti has some high motives, Good Samaritan feelings and pious heart. But he would have streamlined them accordingly by avoiding to incorporate everything in the first film he made.
To sum up, it is a good movie made with a purpose. And the film cannot be compared with 'Happy Days' as it's the movie made for youth in general but not for engineering campus students. It has to be seen how many younger crowds connect with good-message, responsibility lessons and edifying stuff in this flick. Only the luck should patronize the film now.
(SiraSri can be reached at [email protected])
