Amar Akbar Anthony – Movie Review

What’s it about!

In year 2003 in New York, the parents of Amar and Aishwarya, two childhood friends, were killed in a blast. The bomb was planted by trusted members of their family. The kids are saved by Akbar, servant of their two families but due to another incident both the kids are separated. In present day, they are trying to reunite, searching for each other. Meanwhile, Amar is also seeking vengeance. Rest of the drama is easily guessable.

Analysis

At the outset, ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ is a typical revenge drama. But Sreenu Vaitla has made this as a messy affair with his chaotic, erratic narration. Instead of telling it in simple and riveting manner, he has added unnecessary elements, threads making it hard to sit through. Did he intend to tell the revenge drama with comic sequences? Or he wanted to infuse ‘Dissociative Identity Disorder’ to a regular revenge theme? Whatever be his purpose, he has failed totally in the department of writing with full of obsolete spoofs, illogical scenes. 

The film’s story begins in 2003. In 2005, director Surender Reddy debuted with ‘Atanokkade’. The basic line of ‘Atanokkade’ and Sreenu Vaitla’s ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ are similar difference being that the protagonist here suffers from split personality due to the trauma. We have seen many engaging movies that touched upon the subject of split personality eg: Shankar’s ‘Aparichitudu’ (Anniyan). Vaitla has made it a joke.
 
How did he think that today’s audience will accept a scene where a FBI officer beats people during interrogation? And the said FBI officer works more like a rowdy gang in Gowliguda. The film has galore of such idiotic scenes.
 
The screenplay itself is bad and the direction (Sreenu Vaitla is credited as co-story writer, dialogue writer and screenplay) is even worse. While ‘Atanokkade’ is a terrific revenge drama with good emotional connect, this one lacks any emotion. The romantic thread between Ravi Teja and Ileana hardly connects. 

In the first half much of the runtime occupies with WATA (Whole Andhra Telangana Association) episode, a spoof on American Telugu associations. The spoof has jokes that would not have worked even in 2003. Many films had spoofed evangelist KA Paul, what is big deal of using the same with comedian Sathya? His comedy track becomes irritating at a point.

When a film’s story is entirely set in USA, where police system is top-class, makers should write believable scenes. Vaitla has come up with totally illogical sequences. The three avatars of Ravi Teja are like old NTR and ANR era, a cap on skull makes him Akbar, a bit of English usage makes him Anthony.
 
Sunil and Vennela Kishore have tried to salvage the film with some laughs.

As far as performances are concerned, Ravi Teja in his three split avatars is okay. Ileana has looked beautiful though her characterization lacks substance. Shayaji Shinde is neat. The kids who played younger Amar and Aishu (actress Laya’s daughter) are good. Laya makes a forgettable cameo. The villain gang – Tarun Arora and others- look like caricatures. 

The film has rich production values, top-class cinematography. Except ‘Kalala Kathala’ song, Thaman disappoints. Editing is also clumsy. 

Writer and director Vaitla once again disappoints with his outdated ideas.

Bottom-line: ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ is a revenge drama with illogical moments and clumsy narration. Yet another disappointing movie from Vaitla. The best part of the movie is: lavish production values of Mythri Movie Makers. Punchline would be: Mugguru Kadu Atanokkade!