<i>Aadilakshmi</i> Review

Friday, December 08, 2006
Though multi-starrer films are not to be seen these days, one or two films are hitting the screen now and then with more than one hero. Srikant and Naveen Vadde played together in Aadi Lakshmi after a long gap. These two heroes had earlier joined hands and worked together for a hit film like 'Chaala Baagundi' of EVV Satyanarayana. Srikant, during his early days of acting played negative roles. Later, he turned a character artiste and then a hero. Keeping this in view, director RV Suresh chose him in a negative role in this film, while Vadde Naveen played the hero. The film had several twists. Though the director tried to present a triangular love story in a different way, the slow narration of the film killed the tempo.

Surekha (Sridevi) is a popular heroine and Lakshmi Prasad (Vadde Naveen) is a young criminal lawyer. Once Prasad attends the audio release function of film produced by Jagannatham and loses his heart to Surekha. The next day Jagannatham gets murdered and the police were able to trace the murderer as Aadi (Srikant) and arrest him. Surekha pleads with Prasad to save Aadi, saying that he is an innocent. When asked, Surekha reveals that Aadi was her childhood friend. Prasad goes to Aadi and finds that there something wrong. Finally a psychiatrist Purnima (Purnima) declares that he is suffering from split personality disorder. So the court relieves him from the murder charge and sends him to mental asylum. At this juncture, Prasad comes to know from Aadi that he has no mental disorder but he acted like that only to bail out from the hands of law. In fact, he kills the producer as the latter tried to rape Surekha. Being an honest lawyer, Prasad, who saved from the jaws of death, decides to get him punished. Though Surekha is in love with Prasad, she could not digest the fact that Aadi has to be punished. But she comes to know that Aadi is also in love with her and could not even think of someone's shadow on Surekha. After a lot of drama, Aadi whisks away Surekha and plans to leave the country along with Surekha. But, Prasad reaches the spot and saves Surekha from him. In the fight that ensued, Aadi falls into the Gandipet reservoir and the police could not trace the body. But, in the climax, the audiences could see Aadi moving lonely and a smile on the face of Prasad, which indicates that someone (Prasad) saved Aadi.

Plus:
The tunes given by Chakri is a big asset for the film. Being the 50th film of his career, Chakri strived a lot to give melodious tunes to all the songs and at the same time they were also choreographed excellently. A couple of songs were also shot in the beautiful locations of Dubai. The costume designer of Sridevi needs kudos for giving her the best fits to expose her beauty. Next comes Sridevi, the heroine, who did not feel any inhibition to expose her beauty, though not gracelessly. Especially, one song with Srikant and another song with Vadde Naveen were very romantic. The other plus point is the storyline and its movement. The story idea is good and quite novel. Srikanth's performance is another major asset for the film.

Minus:
The director had unnecessarily created several scenes and characters. Even the comedy track between Ali, Abhinayasri and Uttej failed to evoke any laughter and has nothing to do with the story. Likewise, the characters of Prithvi, Kadambari Kiran also very minute and has no good relevance to the subject. It is not known, why only Vadde Naveen chases Srikant and no police could be seen in the vicinity. While Srikant abducts both Sivajiraja and Sridevi before climax, the whereabouts of Sivajiraja was not known. Though the split personality drama was picturised well, why the psychiatrists could not diagnose it is again a question mark. There are many such unanswered questions.

Remarks:
Cinematography by Bhupati is good especially during the multiple personality disorder drama and the use of Digital Intermediate technology and colour grading just before the climax were very good. Choreography of songs is excellent and the film could be watched only for the songs. Dialogues by Marudhuri Raja are okay. However, the screenplay was very loose and the movement of the film is quite tardy. Despite best performance by Srikanth and skin show by Sridevi, the film may not pull crowds because of the slow pace of the film. One had to wait and watch whether it would remain an average flick or hit, as the storyline is different and Srikanth playing a role with a negative shade.