Forty years after his debut as a lead actor in ‘Kaliyuga Pandavulu’, Venkatesh proves that he can still hold a film together through its rough patches. He plays a “family man” named Chitti Babu, and he acknowledges the age difference with his wife Swarna, played by Srinidhi Shetty. They have two children. As luck would have it, this middle-class family wins a lottery and invites the attention of a murderous gang of thieves. The first half just breezes by with a mix of comedy and action. The post-interval portions are where things become somewhat predictable, and the breeziness threatens to turn into boredom. But given the nature of big-hero films of late, this is an easy watch and its low ambitions are, frankly, a bit of a relief. That’s the basic storyline and the quick review. A longer analysis follows, and it may contain some minor spoilers.
Venkatesh’s first film with Trivikram Srinivas as the director (and not just writer) is called Aadarsha Kutumbam House No. 47. The title carries two flavours. The first one is the suggestion of an ideal family vehicle. And the second flavour comes from the abbreviated title of AK-47, which gives us the suggestion of an action entertainer. This mix is pretty much what the story is. The film opens with a top police officer getting reports about a gang of thieves from Bihar. The visuals he watches are filled with violence. He learns that the members of this gang take up jobs in the homes of very rich people and then carry out their dirty deeds. He learns that this gang has come to Hyderabad, and he tells his subordinate that they should warn all the big shots and have more patrolling in upscale neighbourhoods. The very next visual is a cut to a very ordinary middle-class home, where Chitti Babu cooks for his wife and declares that he is “the man of the house”.
We are instantly drawn into the film’s rhythm, which will alternate between scenes of the crime story and scenes of the family story. After a point, the two tracks merge when Chitti Babu wins the lottery and the big amount of money catches the attention of the gang. The early parts are fun. We get some wild, high-energy visual comedy – from Chitti Babu taking over an auto to a neighbour making an entry like Superman in flight. The screenplay uses the characters played by Satya and Raghu Babu as exclamation points for the things being done by Chitti Babu and his family, and you realise – again – how hammy reaction shots can elevate broad humour. There’s a potentially great comic character who asks questions but doesn’t wait for answers, but he remains an interesting idea. He isn’t used much. But Venkatesh knows how to deliver these lines, and he takes care of the first half which comes to a surprising and very unexpected interval block, which plays out like The Incredibles meets Kill Bill.
So far, so good. You can complain about the Nivetha Pethuraj character who is used to make Swarna jealous. I saw this not exactly as “sexism” but as a throwback to older films that used the formula of two women and one man. Aadarsha Kutumbam is trying to make us think that we are in that kind of universe, until the interval point turns everything upside down and makes us see Swarna with new eyes. This is a solid screenplay, with everything being tied up with a neat knot. Whether it’s the ten-crore reward for catching the thieves, or the visual of gold jewels in a sack, or the question about how Chitti Babu and the gang crossed paths with such precision, or the early sight of a judge being killed – everything is resolved neatly. Thaman’s score helps by never dipping into one mood. Even if it’s a sad situation, the cliché of the solo violin is minimised by having techno dressing around it. The music is bouncy most of the way, without underlining any single emotion.
Only in the last portions does the score become a cliché – and that’s probably because the events descend into cliché. The strange thing about Aadarsha Kutumbam is that the film feels complete when we reach the interval point. A happy family is introduced. A threat is introduced. And we see good winning over evil. So the entire second half feels like an afterthought. Yes, many questions are answered, and I was with the film till the point we learn about the past lives of the lead characters. But once the mystery is out, things turn predictable and the easy-breezy nature of the movie turns into something else. It seems to go on and on, with a needless song that comes out of nowhere and is a major distraction from the brutality of the well-choreographed action scenes.
The leads are solid, with Venkatesh giving us a greatest-hits package of comedy and drama and dance and action and also references to his hits like Kalisundam Raa. Srinidhi has a lot of fun playing a desi version of the “dumb blonde” archetype, and later subverting it. And despite the big speech about karma at the end, and despite the big reveal about that judge, this is not exactly a film that takes itself very seriously. And that makes it easier to sit through than other recent big-hero outings. Ravi K Chandran makes an elegant package of the whole movie, and action is especially well-edited by Navin Nooli. Maybe earlier I’d have wondered about the amout of blood and gore in a “family entertainer”, but now I guess we have passed that stage. The recent Trivikram film I use as a benchmark is Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo. Aadarsha Kutumbam does not get close, but as a casual watch, it gets the job done.
