Movie review 'Aagadu': Mahesh Babu thrills as 'Encounter Shankar' in Telugu film

Director: Srinu Vaitla

Cast: Mahesh Babu, Tamannah, Sonu Sood, Rajendra Prasad, Brahmaji, Posani and Brahmanandam

Rating: 3.5 stars

The much-awaited Mahesh Babu starrer ‘Aagadu’ hit screens this Friday. This is the second time that director Srinu Vaitla and Mahesh Babu have come together after their earlier blockbuster ‘Dookudu’. The film was much publicised to showcase the chemistry between Mahesh Babu and director Srinu Vaitla.

The story is not fresh but not complicated either. CI Shankar (Mahesh Babu), who is also known as 'Encounter Shankar', gets posted in a small town called Bukkapattanam. This town is a troubled area because don Damodar (Sonu Sood) rules the roost, threatening people to cooperate in his illegal business.

Even the police have no say in the matter and are helpless, and that’s when Shankar arrives. He starts throttling Damodar's business as soon as he lands. In this process, Shankar finds out that Damodar had attacked his family, and begins metoculously to plans his revenge. In the meantime, Shankar falls in love with Saroja (Tamannah) a sweet-shop owner. How Shankar finally puts an end to Damodar and his gang with the help of Delhi Suri (Brahmanandam) is the crux of the story.

Director Srinu Vaitla has his own style of trademark comedy, and in this film too, he mostly concentrates on entertainment. As the story has nothing much to tell, the director heavily banks on the comedy and more on Mahesh Babu’s comic timing. The film goes in fast-pace and the dialogues too come in a quick manner. When a punch dialogue comes, it is immediately followed by another one. There is no time gap for the audience to think about these dialogues as they come fast one after the other.

When it comes to the actor’s performance, it is Mahesh Babu all the way from the beginning to end. He actually carries the film on his shoulders. Right from the beginning, the histrionics of Mahesh Babu dominate in every scene. And the way he delivered the dialogues with punch lines is going to be a treat for everybody. As usual, Mahesh looks dashing and handsome. He superbly carried the role of a police inspector and has managed to pull it off effortlessly throughout the film. He is present in every frame of the film and when he renders a dialogue one can enjoy the punch and satire in the dialogue. The way he narrates the stories of all his earlier films to villains is hilarious.

For Tamannah there is not much scope to perform as she limited to a few songs and a couple of scenes in the film. She looks beautiful throughout the film. The supporting actors have done a good job too. MS Narayana has once again proved that he is one of the key performers in Srinu Vaitla films. He plays a lawyer and the way he narrates the information of each person is hilarious, especially when he talks about Ashish Vidyarthi. Brahmanandam plays Delhi Suri and makes a few laughs here, but as compared to all Srinu Vaitla’s films, in this film his character is not in the limelight as much expected. But, he makes an entry in the second half and provides a few hilarious scenes.? Along with him, Posani Krishna Murali too brings out a laughter riot. Nasser, Vennela Kishore and Brahmaji play cops and can be sees throughout the film with Mahesh Babu. Vennela Kishore does the comedy part as well too. Sonu Sood plays the antagonist but his character is not elevated well. Shruti Haasan sizzles in an item number and provided the glamour quotient.

Thaman’s music is good and couple of songs comes up very nicely. The action sequences did not turn out as great as expected.

There are a few drawbacks in the film, like the hasty climax. There are some forced comedy scenes before the climax as well, where Brahmanandam dances on different songs. In this film you can see the typical kind of Srinu Vaitla treatment of the subject and comedy, so one can predict what will happen next. The first half of the film is full of entertainment, but the director couldn’t maintain the same tempo in the second half. Rajendra Prasad’s character should have got more screen time as he limited to just a cameo.

When compared to Vaitla –Mahesh’s earlier film ‘Dookudu’ this film does not have the content to keep it on par with it. Though this film has many similarities of Srinu Vaitla’s earlier films, but it’s Mahesh Babu who has the audience’s attention throughout. Watch it for him and more rely on him! The big question is will he pull this film into a big blockbuster?