‘Akhanda’ wins with a tried-and-tested formula

opinion

What makes Nandamuri Balakrishna click in this day and age? Despite the OTT boom fuelling fresh content, he still plays a do-gooder who dumps a truckload of punch lines in his films. While the other veterans have moved away from tried-and-tested formulas, Balakrishna vehemently refuses to do so. And therein lies the secret to his success.

He doesn’t have to play his age à la Rajinikanth in ‘Kabali’ (2016). He just needs to shout his lungs out, beat the villains in cartoonish fight scenes and twirl his mustache for his fans to go gaga over him.

Many of the A-list male stars, who’re above sixty, don't play their age in South cinema. They present themselves as thirty-year-old bachelors who are ready to steal the hearts of their respective love interests (the real thirty-year-olds!). If it’s an odd one out, like 'Manmadhudu 2', the protagonist’s age, naturally, becomes a central piece of the puzzle. Otherwise, the recipe is a bit of romance, a spring of comedy, a teaspoon of tear-jerking events, and a lot of stunt sequences.

'Masala' films are made all over the globe. It’s just that the meaning keeps changing from territory to territory. People though demand better outputs from 'mass' heroes and filmmakers.

In the recently released Telugu action-drama ‘Akhanda,’ Balakrishna plays two characters and one of them is an Aghori who single-handedly murders more than a dozen men. He also wins an argument against an NIA officer by stating that the members of his ilk are special beings and, hence, the laws of the land don’t apply to them. Logically, this scene doesn’t work. But Balakrishna, with his booming voice and terrifying screen presence, makes it bearable.

Within the boundaries of the universe built by a storyteller, anything is possible and achievable. That’s why the ‘Baahubali’ films work to a great extent. That's the reason the superhero thrillers in the West shine at the box office.

What director Boyapati Srinu doesn’t understand is that the world he’s built for this particular movie is riddled with flaws. Of course, Akhanda, the principal character, can manage to crush the bones of his enemies even when multiple axes are stuck to his back. But why can’t the extras eliminate him by shooting him in the head?

Srinu depends on the substantial charisma of an ascetic to move his narrative forward. 'Akhanda', in that context, is a superhuman. Thus, nothing other than the God’s arrow can kill him. But, if you think about it, Balakrishna has starred as an over-the-top action figure in many movies. He doesn’t need the cover of an Aghori to march along as an all-powerful hero. He can, after all, make a train run backward if he puts his mind to the test. Don’t you think he can put an army down on his own?

The Chinese film ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ (2004) had some gravity-defying stunt scenes but you won’t stop in your tracks to think if they’re practically possible because of the way the madcap situations are constructed. In Telugu cinema, though, the writers spend most of their time on making their heroes seem larger than life and sideline other aspects. They don’t worry much about the worlds they’re setting their movies in — and 'Akhanda' is just one in a hundred like that.

(The writer is a Bengaluru-based film critic).