Ankit, Pallavi and Friends - review

The society and the tendencies of people in general and youth in particular are changing. Unlike earlier times the present generation fathers and sons are moving like friends and the fathers are encouraging their children to choose their way. On the other hand, the youth are not falling in love with someone blindly but are trying to make wise steps. The girls while choosing their boyfriends are looking for qualities like how they are going to settle in life and how far they could enjoy the life after their marriage. The boys are also having some independent thoughts and are setting goals for themselves. The debutant director Hari Yelleti has tried to differentiate between love and attraction. Though his feeling is nice he has failed to mould it onscreen. The direction appears very amateurish and the artistes too have failed to live up to the expectations properly.

Ankit (Nikhil) is a boy who is poor in education and could not complete even his degree. However, he has a passion for music and is ready to die for it. His father (CVL Narasimha Rao) though tries to tell him to complete his education, pampers him and wishes to see him a big musician. Ankit has three friends (Ping Pong, Venu and Pradeep) and a girl friend called Pallavi (Megha Barman). Each of them has a different ambition in their lives. While Gopi (Pradeep), who completes his engineering plans to go and settle in the US, Venu (Venu) wants to do some business and become a big capitalist. Ravi (Ping Pong) completes his MBA and has a lot of social awareness. Pallavi gets a job in Wipro. Once Ankit proposes to Pallavi and she accepts it. But she wants Ankit to have a goal to achieve it. She does not want to see him aimless. But when Ankit says that becoming a musician is his dream and he is awaiting a break, an opportunity, the gap between them is widened. Ankit refuses to settle in a life by joining in a company and work from 10 to 5 for the sake of money because he wants happiness in the job. They get separated. Once Ankit gets an opportunity to do a programme for an orphanage managed by Sita (Sita). The programme turns out to be a big hit and gives the adequate break to Ankit and he becomes a big musician thereby achieving his goal. Now, Pallavi feels apprehensive to meet Ankit as she feels that the latter might ill-treat her saying that she met him only because he became popular. Once in a party, Ankit, in an inebriated condition, chides Pallavi in her absence saying love is a trash and music is divine. Pallavi makes his friends realize how deeply she loved him and asks them whether she has no right to pose a question, keeping their future in mind. Once the friends plan to unite Ankit and Pallavi and arrange a party. However, both of them meet sometime earlier than the party and open their hearts and join together and they shock the friends that they had already joined together. The film ends on a happy note.

PLUS:
Cinematography by debutant Malini Dasari is the major plus point in the movie. She has done wonders with the camera. The selection of shooting spot is another plus point in the film. The film shows fresh locales, of course in Hyderabad itself. The director though could not drive home his point properly, has done a lot of exercise to show the mentalities of the present generation youth and their way of thinking. However, he is unable to present them on screen properly. The mix of comedy without a separate comedy track is good. Though the film appears very routine, none of the audiences move away from the seats, though all the scenes are quite predictable. Nikhil who plays the main lead needs to improve himself especially body language and expressions. He should avoid imitating popular heroes (at times his expressions remind us of Pawan Kalyan).

MINUS:
Heroine is a big minus in the movie. Though she appears glamorous, she has failed to emote well before the camera. Her facial expressions are very poor. The director has tried to show that a group of friends have different goals but are bound together by the friendship thread. However, he could not establish any of the characters properly as none of them is serious to achieve his goal. Mere verbal expression will not do and they need to do something constructively. A person who wants to become a musician, should have the knack to gel with any situation till he gets the break but should not be aggressive. The hero is quite aggressive. Even after achieving his goal, he does not contact his girlfriend. The climax is also very poor and fails to give something interesting at least.

REMARKS:
Dreaming of something is good but a person should also have some commitment to achieve the target. The audiences could understand this because the poor presentation, amateurish direction, old model narration and uninteresting screenplay have resulted in the average quality of the film. But for a couple of songs, the music is not so worthwhile, and the re-recording is okay. When the hero, wants to become a musician, the audiences expect very good music but it is below average. As a whole, the film can be watched once but definitely not a must watch.

Cast: Nikhil, Megha Burman, Pingpong, Santosh Pavan, Naresh, CVL Narasimha Rao, Venu, Pradeep, Ram Jagan, Sivanarayana, Sita, Sudeepa, Srilatha, Revati and others

Credits: Music – Vinu Thomas, Lyrics – Vanamali, Cinematography – Malini Dasari, Editing – Marthand K Venaktesh, Art – Ramana Vanka, Co-Producers – Jakkampudi Venkatesh, Hari Yelleti, Producers – Kishore Ganji and Raghu, Story, screenplay and direction – Hari Yelleti.

Banner: Innovision Cinema