Allari Naresh's career hasn't been going smooth in the recent past. Some of the experiments done by him with his roles simply turned futile exercises. At this juncture, he has come up Meda Meeda Abbayi an official remake of Malayalam super hit 'Oru Vadakkan Selfie'. Let's see what's there in the film.
Srinu (Allari Naresh), an Engineering student, is an easy going guy, who is very poor at studies. His friends and neighbours ridicule him for his poor performance in examinations while his father is fed up with his son being turned as a lazy student and befriends with mischievous peer group. Things aren't gone well with Srinu post the selfie moment of his taken up with Sindhu (Nikhila Vimal) without her notice in a train. After a couple of twists, Srinu is blamed for being eloped with Sindhu to Hyderabad. And now, his task is set to get himself proved innocent in front of his father and villagers. Then comes the question Who is Sindhu? Why does she escape Hyderabad? Does Srinu bring her back to his village? And many other questions form rest of the story.
As usually, Allari Naresh has done it well with ease in tailor made role. His histrionics and punch dialogues in hilarious sequences were awesome. Nikhila Vimal was cute and lovable. However, her role doesn't offer any glamour quotient. Moreover, she has less screen space and limited opportunity to emote. In most of the scenes she is seen weeping or in a state of melancholy. Avasarala Srinivas is seen as detective Yugandhar and reminds us Kommuni Samasiva Rao's hero Yugandhar in the latter's detective novels. Hyper Aadi has done a fabulous job as a supporting character for hero. His timing in some of the scenes like 'Explaining about the greatness of short films', was terrific. Rest of the cast did their job well.
Director G Prajit scored a super hit in Malayalam version. When it comes to Telugu, he couldn't get sustainability. The movie was a slow narrative in both the halves. The first half was refreshing with some comedy sequences. As and when the second half takes a serious turn, there has been a pin-drip silence in theaters. Somehow, the movies runs in parallel lines with no romance between the lead star cast and no duets shot on them. Even then, a few hilarious scenes in second half could have changed the fate of the film.
Musician Shan Rahman gave two good tunes 'Notlona velu pedithey' and 'Ontari manasa' while the BGM was relevant. Cinematography was okay while the production values are not so great.
Allari Naresh's admirers can easily connect with the first half of the film as it has some interesting comedy sequences shot on the hero and his friends. Sadly, the second half has been executed with a snail paced screen play with numerous boring scenes included in it.
Allari Naresh
Hyper Aadi
First half
Second half
Slow narration
No romance
Poor production Values
Meda Meeda Abbayi is holistically a message oriented film. However, the director makes it underlying focusing much on hero, heroine and other characters' elevations. But then, he missed the nuances of of an a Allari Naresh's film in the second half. Had Meda Meeda Abbayi been made as a full length comedy entertainer with a swift paced screen play, the result could have been different. But then, the situation has now tumbled down. In essence, CJ rates the movie with 2.25 stars.