After watching stylish star Allu Arjun‘s performance in Pushpa (2021) I watched his earlier film Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo (2020), a Telugu action drama that was a super hit. Unabashedly this was completely a formula film with a dare-devil yet kind-hearted hero, there is mother’s sentiment, duet songs and fights for every twenty minutes. Yet, it was enjoyable. Available on Netflix, it gets a Ripe rating.
The story is as old as Indian epics. Out of greed, the hero’s father, a manager for a super-rich family, switches his newborn boy baby with his owner’s baby. As expected the rich boy, though growing up without wealth, exhibits all attributes of a Bollywood hero and ends up saving single-handedly his biological parents family from internal and external ruin. In between, he spends his time romancing with the heroine and playing comedy with friends.
This is all-out Allu Arjun‘s film, everyone else plays almost guest roles. Jayaram and Tabu are the biological parents. Pooja Hegde comes in beautiful costumes, speaks a word or two and then vanishes. Samuthirakani is the super-villain. Murali Sharma plays the role of the greedy and selfish Valmiki, the dad of the hero, well – his character added life to an otherwise masala film. I wish Nivetha Pethuraj had got more screen time.
Whether it is the fight sequences or the dance number “Butta Bomma”, the movements by Allu are fluid and certainly ‘stylish’. Even in the scenes where he expresses his anger to Valmiki or narrates a comedy, his mannerisms were a delight a watch.
I couldn’t understand how the hero works for a manager who had just then near fatally assaulted his sister on the streets. The hero’s character Bantu preaches values and respect for women, yet from first sight he objectives his lady boss, by only looking at her thighs – how is this an expression for love, fails me. There are plenty of such absurdities, but if we ignore them, we get a good entertainer made by Director Trivikram Srinivas.
Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo
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