Aaru Review

If you're wondering why a person would be named something like Aaru, it's simple - it's because it's a small number. We mean, it would be quite hard to keep calling a person who is named Moodu Vela Rendu Vandala Dabbhai Nalugu. People will then anyway call him Moodu in short, defeating the whole purpose. Yes, his parents were no doubt quite far-sighted, and restricted it to a small number in the first place.

Anyway, Aaru (Surya) is the hands-on executive for Vishwanath (Ashish Vidyarthi), a land-grabbing real estate villain, and runs errands for his boss, like breaking people's bones in return for their silence. One day Aaru runs into Maha (Trisha), who is impressed by his oratory as he lectures an errant friend of hers on morals, on being a good daughter and on 101 proven ways to retain virginity. And when Aaru saves Maha from the clutches of Aadi (Jayaprakash Reddy) who's trying to sell her into flesh trade, she's head-over-heels in love.

However, Aaru strongly believes that there is a global requirement for at the most 3 women, and that the rest are just taking up space. He tells her to buzz off, but she does not relent, and eventually wins his heart. Like all women, though, she's not satisfied with what she gets, and wants him to now prove that he loves her with his heart and not his mind, or something like that. Aaru tells her he'll get back when he figures out what exactly she means, or is at least able to repeat her question without any mistake.

In the meanwhile, Aaru realizes that his boss masterminded the killing of 5 of his friends, and this disappoints him, since nobody likes the killing of 5 of his friends, even if it has been masterminded. He vows revenge against Vishwanath and his evil brothers, and starts by chopping off the hand of the youngest brother, deciding that it is of no use to anyone.

Vishwanath is wild and launches a massive manhunt for Aaru, but Aaru is too busy for all that, since he is suddenly starting to figure out what Maha actually meant about that heart and mind thing. Then he fails to understand it all over again, and so he gets back to hacking Vishwanath's brothers, getting 2 of them this time. That leaves just Vishwanath and the climax, and both of them end soon. As for Maha, she tells him to take it easy about that heart and mind thing since she's a bit confused herself, so it's a happy ending.

Well, if Chandramukhi, Aparichitudu, Ghajini and Premiste made you think all Tamil films have novel themes and/or great picturization, Aaru brings you right back to terra firma. It's just another good guy – bad guys schtick, with nothing to redeem it from the dungeon of zillions of average films. You do not need to sit in a film featuring unknown faces from another state and poor lip-sync, for the same stuff that all Telugu producers churn out.

The performances are all fine, though a comic track featuring Vadivelu (voice of Brahmanandam) needs a laughtrack. The gore is a little too much, and some of the photography in the songs, where the visuals are stretched out horizontally, seems like someone just discovered it could be done, and therefore thinks it's cool. The music is pretty average.

Don't waste your time on this one.