Legendary producer Dr.D.Rama Naidu's grandson, Suresh Babu's son, Rana's brother Abhiram is making his debut with Ahimsa under the direction of Teja. This is exciting for all movie lovers and the intense teasers and trailers increased expectations. The film's OTT rights are yet to be finalized and streaming will be done after the completion of its theatrical run.
Ahmisa Story is all about a youngster who believes in nonviolence and how he reacts to a world full of corruption, violence etc when a few shocking incidents happen resulting in his peaceful life coming down crashing. Police officer Ekambaram (Ravi Kale) starts investigating the missing top politician Dushyant Rao (Rajat Bedi) in Katheru village. He finds out shocking revelations about a youngster Raghu (Abhiram Daggubati), who believes in nonviolence under any circumstances. Where this leads to, and how Ahalya (Geethika Tiwary), her father (Devi Prasad), and lawyer Lakshmi (Sada) are connected to it, form the crux of the story.
Abhiram Daggubati from the Daggubati clan, made a sincere effort on his debut. He tried to show variations in his expressions and emotions. However, his character arc doesn't inspire confidence as it turned out to be stale.
Geethika Tiwary who played the female lead got limited scope to show her talent. She is confined to running after the hero always asking for liplocks in English and Telugu style. Except for the argument supporting Lord Krishna over Gautam Buddha, she did not get any different dialogues.
Rajat Kale is ok in the role of the typical antagonist. The less one says about the other cast like Sada, Devi Prasad, Ravi Kale, etc, the better it is.
Ahimsa's story chosen by Teja did not offer anything new to the viewers. Viewers many times have watched the protagonist who believes in non-violence go on to take revenge when his family members and his near and dear ones get affected due to violence. Teja tried to generate interest by talking about Lord Krishna's sayings that if violence is taken for the right cause, there is nothing wrong with it, and Buddha talking about violence by all means.
But Teja quickly forgot it and conveniently passed the time with a routine, weak beaten-to-death story. He spent the entire first half, with the romance between the lead pair and the hero tolerating and bearing the pain inflicted by the antagonist silently. First half ends setting the tone for the violent second half. Mindless violence is shown and viewers fail to get connected emotionally as everything looks artificial.
There is a dialogue with which the film ends. Hero tells the heroine, to save ourselves we should run. It is apt for audience also. To save themselves from Ahimsa, they should run.
RP. Patnaik's music offered nothing new. However, a couple of songs are melodious and they are aesthetically shot in picturesque locations. Background music is in sync with the story but at times turned out to be loud. Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao did not trouble himself much as he knew the story is routine and rotten and he cannot do much with the editing to save it even if he works hard. Sameer Reddy's cinematography concentrated on elevating the glamor of heroine and if not the mindless and senseless violence. Dialogues offered nothing new and followed the same template. Production values of Aanandi Art Creations are ok.
Altogether, Ahimsa's story had disaster writ all over it. Teja seems to have lost track of the changing tastes and moods of the viewers. He still got stuck up in the 90s and had the film released in the 80s, it wouldn't have survived. Wonder how experienced pros like Suresh Babu, Venkatesh, and Rana, put young hero Abhiram, from their clan in the hands of an outdated director. He would have been saved of all this ignominy, had he not made his debut on screen at all.
Teja failed on all fronts, first with the story and then with the screenplay and direction. From then on its a free fall and just like Karna's death there are a lot of reasons, For Ahimsa's failures there are a lot of reasons. At least Karna had many good qualities and Ahimsa had none. Considering all these points, Cinejosh goes with a 1.5 Rating for Ahimsa.