Movie Review: 'Akhil' falls short of expectations

Cast: Akhil, Sayesha, Rajendra Prasad Mahesh Manjrekar, Vennela Kishore and Brahmanandam

Director: V. V. Vinayak

Rating: 2 Stars

After a long wait and a couple of postponements, Akhil Akkineni’s debut film Akhil released on Diwali.

Director V. V. Vinayak’s story starts with a narration about how ancient Indians created a metal ball, “jua”, to save the earth. As per their calculations, the ball should be placed somewhere in Africa, otherwise after an impending solar eclipse, the sun’s rays will create havoc. The above narration is in animation, and lasts till the credits are showing.

Now the real story begins. Akhil (also called Akhil in the film) is introduced with a boxing fight near Charminar. He is an orphan and he fights for money. He meet Divya (Sayesha), a medical student and daughter of a mafia don (Mahesh Manjrekar).

The two fall in love at first sight though trying to impress her, Akhil says that he is a veterinary doctor.

Meanwhile Divya’s father fixed her marriage with someone else (Vennela Kishore) but he, with Akhil’s help, elopes with another girl after the engagement. Divya moves to Spain in search of Vennela Kishore and meets an African boy, who actually knows about the metal ball. Akhil too reaches Spain to see Divya.

Meanwhile Divya’s father also arrives, looking for the African boy. A Russian, who is also after the ball, reaches the scene. What happens next is the crux of the story.

Usually V.V. Vinayak is a safe bet as a director and any film of his is almost a guaranteed hit. But after watching Akhil, one is compelled to ask, “what happened to Vinayak?”. The film doesn’t carry Vinayak’s stamp at all. Given that it is the launch of a big star son, (Nagarjuna), one would expect a stronger storyline.

The screenplay is also off and the scenes seem to be disjointed and do not flow smoothly. This would be one of the worst films of the director’s career. It seems he concentrated only on the songs and even then, the chemistry between Sayesha and Akhil is not good. 

Akhil meanwhile excels only in his dances. But for a film’s success that is not enough. His expressions are wooden and it is evident that he still has a long way to go.

Sayesha Saigal is cute and beautiful. Her character is not a strong one, but she has done a neat job. Brahmanandam, Vennela Kishore and Saptagiri provided the regular comedy, there was nothing new.

Mahesh Manjrekar as a mafia don is wooden, while the character of Rajendra Prasad, who plays the principal, is not properly defined.

Nagarjuna appears for a few seconds and dances with his son in a song; the scene is perhaps the best part of the film.

Kona Venkat’s dialogues are average and Veligonda Srinivas’ story is mostly predictable.

Technically, the cinematography is very nice with some beautiful locations. The action-choreography is good, but some action scenes are silly as the graphics are very evident.

Prior to the release of Akhil, Nagarjuna had said often that he didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes as his elder son Naga Chaitanya’s debut film. Thus there were high expectations for Akhil, which, unfortunately did not live up to the standards. Akhil should wait for couple of years before doing this kind of a film. He should instead try his hand at a love story or something similar.

Download the all new Deccan Chronicle app for Android and iOS to stay up-to-date with latest headlines and news stories in politics, entertainment, sports, technology, business and much more from India and around the world.