Iddarammayilatho

Story: Akanksha (Katherine) is the daughter of a powerful politician. She relocates to Spain to pursue higher studies and stumbles upon the personal diary left belonging to Komali (Amala) in her new home. The diary has a first person account of Komali’s love story with Sanju Reddy (Allu Arjun), the lead guitarist of a local rock band. Akanksha falls in love with Sanju only to learn that everything was a trap.

Movie Review: You get the impression this movie designed to be a fashion statement. It has to be said nothing looks out of place...except the plot perhaps, but we’ll come to that later. Staying on fashionable, Allu Arjun is easily the show stopper with spiked hair, shoes tucked into shoes that rise above his ankles, multiple tattoos and more accessories than you can count. He probably wore more accessories than Catherine Teresa and Amala Paul put together. However, the leading ladies were pretty well fashioned themselves and held their own in the fashion stakes.

The arresting nature of the cinematography, smoothness of editing, perkiness of the music, and flamboyantly conceived action sequences are also in synch with the over all style standards. All the panache does add up to make the film look better than it is, well at least until the end of the first half. Minutes into the second half our worst fears begin to come true. Beneath all the gloss is just another big dumb action/romance package that’s as unsurprising as they get.

The movie opens in the midst of an impending mining scandal (how original is that?). A civil servant is commissioned to bring to book a powerful mining mafia. A powerful minister, Rao Ramesh is the lynch pin of the scam valued at Rs1lakh crore. But then the scene moves to Spain following the trail of his pretty daughter, Akanksha who moves there to study psychology.

However, a personal diary she finds in a house she moves in to grabs all her attention. It diary is Komali’s first person account of her romance with Sanju Reddy. Komali, it is revealed is a conservative Brahmin girl who moves to Spain to learn to play the Fidel under the tutorship of Brahmanandam. She runs into Sanju who heads a rag tag music band and sparks fly. A couple of gags and songs later the two promptly fall in love. Just a couple of days before getting hitched, she gets abducted by a gang of villains. Why? Well she happens to unknowing shoot them killing a banker. This is where the mining scam reconnects with the narrative. Then the gloves just come off completely and the movie nosedives into utter redundancy.

Well the movie does have some moments. Puri Jagannath packs in a few of his trademark one-liners about how the truest essence of a people comes out when he/she is all by themselves. Some sexist humor about how it is only men who fall in love at first sight of a girl who in-turn weighs a thousand pros and cons before giving the nod etc. Well there are a few mandatory references to Pawan Kalyan and Chiranjeevi to keep the “Mega fans” something to cheer about, besides a few standard edition movie jokes.

The biggest disappointment is the forced comedy track between Ali and Brahmanandam. And another unnecessary twist in the tale convinces you of the movie’s hollowness. As far as performances go, Allu Arjun steals the show. Katherine plays the eye candy and Amala Paul seems wasted in a silly role.

Note: It’s stylishly shot but ends up feeling like an incredibly well garnished dish that’s got a key ingredient missing. Unless you are a die hard Allu Arjun fan, you’ll struggle to see the bright side of this one.