Takkari Review

Takkari, much like Maggi noodles, positively reeks of formula. But then, so do so many other Tollywood movies. Is there a way, then, to review Takkari other than stating the obvious? Nope. Because Takkari is a rather, er, 'obvious' movie.

The tale features spurned hero Tirupati (Nitin) who wins back his lover, and dumb heroine Priya (Sada) who emerges from hiding only when she is needed to perform her duties, such as undulating her spine in backless cholis and thrusting her chest against the camera, in songs that are perfectly evenly spaced and dished out medicinally every half an hour like a dose of castor oil. You only wish it was Valium instead. Or pesticide.

The villain Guru (Sayaji Shinde), like a video game character who cannot move through certain walls, is never allowed to enter the realms of intelligent thinking. Comedy, too, pops in and out cyclically with Venu Madhav and Ali gatecrashing without introductions. In fact, every element of the movie is so disconnected, it seems like Amma Rajasekhar outsourced it all to various specialists and then just plugged and played.

The story meant to connect this chaos is that Tirupati is a bit of a prodigal son, a wastrel who will sit around doing nothing unless his dad (Chandramohan) lends him at least Rs. 1 lakh to start his own business. Which the latter obviously refuses to do.

Tirupati also obviously proceeds to fall in love with Priya (Sada) when she appears in his vicinity preening and tossing her hair around. She obviously has a villain brother Guru (Shinde), who is overprotective of her and will obviously not see her married to a loser like Tirupati. He offers Rs. 25 lakh to Tirupati to leave Priya.

In what is supposed to be the differentiating twist to the movie, but somehow emerges as painfully obvious, Takkari accepts the money and leaves Priya. And cleverly builds himself a business empire so he can win her back from Guru.

Nitin's acting is pretty ordinary, except that he smiles a lot and makes you think he might be better off playing an angel or a cherub, or at least Lord Hanuman's well-tempered disciple in Sri Anjaneyam. Except, that movie bombed. It would help him to introduce a serious side to the personality he projects. Tollywood moviegoers like the angry young man, and Nitin almost always comes across as the happy young schoolboy.

Sada is quite forgettable, and Sayaji Shinde proves his dependability in playing villain - but who wants a dependable villain?

As for the music track, well, all we can say of Takkari is that it has a music track like most other movies. There's wanton use of reduplicative, nonsense lyrics, and you might just as well set James Joyce's Finnegan Wake to a tune if you wanted music that you could not make head or tail off. Why bother with Takkari?

Takkari treads the path of formula so carefully, that just might be its saving grace, or just as easily, its downfall. No one can tell. After all, some like Maggi Noodles, some detest it, and some like it on some days.

Then again, movies and noodles are not the same thing.