Movie: Agnyaathavaasi
Rating: 2/5
Banner: Haarika and Haasine Creations
Cast: Pawan Kalyan, Keerthy Suresh, Anu Emmanuel, Khusbu, Boman Irani, Rao Ramesh, Vennela Kishore, Raghubabu and others
Music: Anirudh
Cinematography: V Manikandan
Editing: Kotagiri Venkateshwara Rao
Art: A S Prakash
Action: Ravi Varma
Producer: S Radhakrishna
Written and Directed by: Trivikram
Release date: Jan 10, 2018
After “Baahubali 2”, Pawan Kalyan’s “Agnyaathavaasi” had closed highest ever pre-release business in Tollywood. This is enough to say how much hype this movie has generated and how much expectations the film is carrying. This is 2018’s first release and this season’s biggest movie. This is also third combination from Pawan Kalyan and Trivikram.
Has the film lived up to all the hype? Let’s find out.
Story:
Govind Bhargav aka Vinda (Boman Irani), chairman of AB Group of Industries, is killed by a rival businessman in an attempt to take over his company. His other son also gets killed.
The guy who hatched a plan to kill him is under the assumption that Govind has no heir to take over the company.
Govind always keeps plan B ready for every crisis in his business. He also has a plan B – a son who is not known to the world. Now Indrani (Khusbu), his wife, brings the son from hiding.
Enters Abhishikt Bhargv (Pawan Kalyan). He enters into the office of AB Headquarters with another identity as Balasubramanyam to find out who are his father’s killers.
How he finds them out is the main story.
Artistes’ Performances:
Pawan Kalyan has appeared in classy avatar after a long gap, he is excellent in the role of Abhishikt Bhargav. His performance in the interval block and final sequences are first rate. But his comic timing is missing. His characterization is so weak.
Khusboo as step-mother is okay. Boman Irani in a brief role is excellent. The comedy done by Rao Ramesh and Murali Sharma is the most boring part of the movie.
Both the lead actresses don’t have much role. Keerthy is beautiful. Anu Emmanuel as PA is okay.
Aadhi Pinishetty’s characterization and his performance is one of the highlights of the movie.
Vennela Kishore and Raghu Babu are wasted. Tanikella Bharani comes up with winning performance.
Technical Excellence:
“Agnyaathavaasi” is such a lavishly shot movie. Each shot is classy and rich with beauty. Bollywood cinematographer has left his mark in every frame.
The songs are captured well but they are not placed well and cut abruptly. Art work is excellent.
Editing is a huge draw back. The pace and the scenes are badly edited. Production values are the main strength.
Highlights:
Cinematography
Production values
Drawback:
Lack of entertainment
Weak writing
No Logic
Office comedy scenes
No arresting conflict
Analysis:
The trailers and news reports suggested that “Agnyaathavaasi” is either a sequel to “Attarintiki Daaredhi”, director Trivikram’s earlier blockbuster with Pawan Kalyan, or it could be a remake of international movie “Largo Winch: The Heir Apparent”.
Of course, there are traces of “Attarintiki Daaredhi” but the film’s basic plot structure has religiously followed “Largo Winch”, though it is not a scene to scene copy.
Like in “Largo Winch”, the movie is all about the heir apparent coming out to find out his father’s killers. There are also many similarities with “Largo Winch” – the corporate setup, the conflict, the deaths, Khusbu’s role. However, “Largo Winch” was packaged as a racy thriller. Here, the raciness is missing, the emotion is non-existent, and the writing is awfully bad.
It would be hard to believe that a master writer like Trivikram could come up with such weak writing. Without doubt, he has failed totally in writing. Whatever be the story, Trivikram always writes best entertaining scenes and touching sentimental dialogues. The comedy here is dated.
What was he thinking when he wrote characters of Sharma and Varma, two high-ranking managers who act like Allu Ramalingaiah and Rajanala of old movies in global corporate company setup? Hero beats them with his belt and roams on a cycle in the office! Absurdity to the core. These kind of silly and inane office comedy sequences occupy major part in the first half and also in the second half.
Even the so-called “Koduka Koteswara Rao” song is shot in this office set up. No comedy is generated out of this.
These scenes look more like Trivikram and Pawan Kalyan having fun on their movie sets than a corporate setup. Surely, this is Trivikram's worst writing of his career.
Despite the presence of Khusbu, the step mother, the scenes between Pawan Kalyan and her are not at all touching like the scenes between Pawan Kalyan and Nadiya in “Attarintiki Daaredi”. Their scenes are too plain.
What we expect from a Trivikram movie: entertainment, touching dialogues. In “Agnyaathavaasi”, both are missing from the word go. Whatever comedy there is, has not worked out well. Two heroines indulging in catfights, slapping each other’s face and pulling their hair over hero is so '80’s.
While the first half of the movie is plain and uni-directional, the second half of the movie holds interest after the interval. The flashback episode of Boman Irani is quite well told. His penchant for keeping plan B is well-established. However, the logic goes missing here when Pawan Kalyan goes all out to bring a “will” to prove that he is the son of Vinda when he could easily go for a DNA Test.
In “Largo Winch”, the hero is an adopted son. So, he needs to prove his legitimacy. But in “Agnyathaavaasi”, the heir apparent is the real heir apparent and he could prove it with a simple DNA test.
The total second half goes downhill. Although the climax is handled better, it doesn’t save the film. Anirudh’s music is catchy but the songs are not effective on screen.
There is a dialogue in the film: “Kotta idea rakapotey vacchina idea ne better ga cheyyali”. Had Trivikram implemented this it would have been a lot better.
Overall, “Agnyaathavaasi” is a huge let down despite classy and rich production values as it doesn’t entertain or move. It will be known as a bad movie in Trivikram’s career.
Bottom-line: B(ad) Plan!