A tepid psycho-thriller

The urge to do triple roles must be among the topmost desires in an Indian film hero. There are hardly any big names who have not attempted taking up this challenge- expectedly, with mixed results. While heroes who have been identified as actors managed to do justice with the strength of their performances, the same cannot be said of those A-listers who were more known for their star images. Replicating the 1977 Hindi film title ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ and taking up a psychological condition – Dissociative Identity Disorder aka Multiple Personality Disorder - as the knot around which the story is spun, director Srinu Vaitla comes up with a 153-minute venture.

Of course, with the ‘Mass Maharaja’ Ravi Teja as his trump card, Vaitla posits his film appropriately enough with a mix of comedy, tight action sequences and a rapid roll out of scenes. Though the film is shot in the USA entirely, with the country’s skyscrapers and breathtaking views managing to impress, the slick feel to the revenge drama is not matched by an interesting screenplay. After the mandatory flashback and quick cuts, the audience is exposed to what is on offer – a cat-and-mouse game in which the hero will win in the end. With a set of four villains, largely unknown other than Tarun Arora, seen drinking and hamming in dubbed voices, the punch and the grip of their criminal behaviour is not all that effective. It is then left to Ravi Teja alone to shoulder the burden entirely, killing these bad guys one by one, with the comedy team of Vennela Kishore, Raghu Babu, Sunil and others providing relief here and there.

The role of an avenger does not give too much scope for the humorous tinge to the hero’s character, barring a few scenes in which his medical condition gets the better of him. Abhimanyu Singh plays a FBI officer, who is always a few steps behind the hero and this happens till the end when the US court rules in favour of the latter. Heroine Ileana, a last-minute entrant into the project, tries to do justice to her character but does not have much to either sizzle or stay as a strong back-up to the hero’s efforts as she is too shown with a psychological condition. Thaman’s songs are ineffective while the BGM is good. It’s time for Telugu commercial cinema to stop over-exploiting medical science and its quirky situations to fit it in their masala mix and make a hash of it time and again.