Sai and Shujath talk Cinema

After the mega debacle of last year’s Pournami, M.S. Raju tries to play safe this time by trying a no-brainer fun film. Aata succeeds partly - it hits the bull’s eye for the no-brainer part but sadly even till the end it tries very very hard to be funny but alas! You can actually get a feel of how this film is going to turn out in the first 15 minutes or so.

A girl on the run from a dreaded villain bumps into the hero who isn’t the one sending people flying in the air (well here he actually does that to jeeps) but plays the so called “mind games” to triumph over the villain. This “mind games” thing actually came into existence a few years back probably in response to waning interest in the ”faction” genre. To my knowledge V.V. Vinayak’s Dil was the one which started it. Quite a few movies followed suit successfully - where the plot involves the hero trying a dumb trick on the dumb villain but nevertheless good humor mostly salvaged the proceedings. Unfortunately in Aata, most of the humor is mediocre if not outrightly juvenile.

I didn’t quite understand why a lot of time was wasted in the beginning trying to establish the hero as a movie freak. One would expect that this aspect has to play an important role in the plot. All our hero ends up doing is mouthing a few well known filmy lines at times. Actually, the only thing I liked in this flick are the songs which come as a welcome relief. The tunes aren’t outstanding (Devisri Prasad) but the vibrant choreography make them lot better on screen. The title song which also doubles up as the background score is really good.

Siddharth delivers a spirited performance as usual but he can’t do much to elevate this film. Ileana struts her stuff as expected and doesn’t disappoint. Sunil and Jai Prakash Reddy are also quite good. The villain Munna is just about okay. M.S. Raju is credited for the story and screenplay - so you know who to blame. V.N. Aditya’s direction is nothing to rave about.

On the brighter side, this flick doesn’t put you off totally (though it almost came close to that towards the climax) and it manages to be an average watch….but a disappointment given the fact that so many established names were involved.