Review of Athidi Telugu movie

STORY:

Athidhi
Directed by	Surender Reddy
Produced by	Ronnie Screwvala
Written by	Vakkantham Vamsi
Narrated by	Abburi Ravi
Starring	Mahesh Babu, Amrita Rao, Murali Sharma, Ashish Vidyarthi, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Nassar Brahmanandam Malaika Arora Khan
Music by	Mani Sharma
Cinematography	Sameer Reddy
Editing by	Gowtham Raju
Distributed by	UTV Motion Pictures
Release date(s)	18 October 2007
Running time	157 min.
Country	India
Language	Telugu

Story
Athidi (Mahesh Babu) is an orphan rescued by a Delhi couple when he was a kid. The couple also has a little daughter. But in a mishap, Athidi is framed as killer of the couple who gave him the shelter. He goes to the jail as a kid and grows up there. After releasing from Jail, he takes up the mission of eradicating evil elements in the society. He is in the search of two people. One is the daughter of the couple and the other one is the Kaizer who killed the couple. The rest of the story is all about how he locates them and finishes off the work.

Artists Performance

Mahesh Babu: Mahesh Babu is pretty stylish with his new hairdo. He continued same reckless characterization/mannerisms he enacted in Pokiri. He made sure that he mixed entertainment in fights in first half. There are quite a few emotional scenes in which Mahesh Babu gave perfect performance. Probably this is the first film in which Mahesh created comedy by getting drunk. He is pretty cool at it.

Others: Amrita Rao's styling/spontaneity did not suit the character and characterization. But she is good with emotions. Asish Vidyardhi managed to look funny and furious at the same time. Though he looks very weird in the film he managed to creates good laughs. Murali Sharma is pretty good and his performance in the climax is neat. Brahmanandam, Sunil and Venu Madhav are used for the comedy. Nassar, Kota, Ajay and Ravi Prakash are adequate. The child artists who donned the roles of jr. athidi, jr. amrita and heroine's sister are cute.

Technical Departments:

Story - screenplay - direction: Story and scenes of the film are old fashioned. But director used new technique efficiently to narrate the film. He is pretty creative when it comes to shoot action episodes. The way he has shown the future of the goons in the first fight is highly creative. The same goes with the scene in which an unsolicited home loan call disturbs the villain when he is highly tensed. But, director did not succeed in the screenplay aspect. The duration of 3 hours is too lengthy to narrate such a story. Director should have handled the vital aspect of the last 30 minutes well as it is the last 30 minutes that decides the fate of any film.

Other departments: Songs of the film are ok. The songs 'Khabadarani' and 'Satyam Emito' are highly aesthetic in visuals. The highly appreciated 'Rathraina Ok' song is not upto the expectations on the screen and the Anushka voice seem to have got dubbed by somebody else on the screen. Background music by Mani Sharma is good. Dialogues by Abbburi Ravi are good. Cinematography by Sameer Reddy is excellent. Editing of the film should have been better. Production values are extraordinary.

Analysis: First half of the film is decent as it established the characters and love track and then reveals a twist. The second half is about Athidi becoming the unsolicited bodyguard. The last 30 minutes of the film are heavy. The positive aspects of the film are Mahesh Babu and few fight sequences. The negative aspects of the film are heavy last half an hour, movie runtime and excessive violence. We have to wait and see how Telugu film lovers embrace this stylized flick.