ADAVI: REVIEW

             Whatever the quality of films Ram Gopal Varma makes, he manages to stay in the
middle  of  media  attention  all  the  time.  He  achieved  it  again in the recent times with
controversy regarding his films “Rann” and “Agyaat” released as “Adavi” in telugu. This is the
hindi debut for struggling telugu hero Nitin. Apart from him,  Ravi Kale and Nisha Kothari are
the only other known faces in the cast of this film.

Story:
A film unit goes to a never entered jungle for their latest film  shooting.  The group is an
assorted mix of typical characters. An egalomaniac hero, a sexy and humane  heroine, an
assistant director silently worshipping the heroine, another female assistant director in love
with her fellow assistant director, the director himself who needs a hit with  this  film, the
tamilian producer, a stunt master, cameraman, and finally  the  hero’s all bearing obedient
assistant.
           This group comes into the hands of an odd  looking  person  living  in the jungle
as a guide to the group. The hero and the stunt master always fight and the entire unit
cannot stand the behaviour of the hero, particularly  his  treatment  of his assistant. The
shoot gets disturbed as the camera gets damaged. The unit  goes  for  a  trip deep into
the jungle for exploration while waiting for the camera to be replaced. Starting with the
guide, one by one gets killed, and they cannot conclude whether an animal or a human
is killing them. How the lead actors escape from this all consuming jungle makes the rest
of the story.

Actors:

Apart form the jungle and camera and to an equal level, the sound of the film, all the
actors play just supporting roles. Nitin looked very good in the initial parts as a besotted
lover. His saviour act was not significant  enough  and  neither  very impressive.  It may
well turn out to be another forgettable film for him.
           Nish did her best in  showing  off  her skin.  Ravi  Kale  was  good as the stunt
master but his final turn as  the  bad guy was not plausible. The actor who played the
hero’s assistant was good. Particularly in the second half praying for the Goddess Durga
to  come  and  save  them  and acting defiant chanting the name of the goddess. The
comic tamilian producer was just forgettable. The director was somewhat interesting
mainly with his looks. Others were just adequate.

Technicians:
  The sound effects were very good. Creating something out of nothing would be
difficult for any body, but the sound technician, with the help of the camera came
close to achieving it. If only they were supported by a bit more meat in the story,
the film could have been much better and easily bearable.

Over all:
Entire burden for the failure of this film is on the shoulders of director RGV himself.
He  tried  something no other filmmaker tried before. But he forgot the point that
it should give  enough  scope  to  the audience and their creative participation, to
see, comprehend,  and  add  something  to  the  material  and  enjoy  the  whole
experience.  It  is  not a creature, it is not extraterrestrial unseeable force, it is not
an animal, humans are not part of the danger, then what should the characters fight?
If fighting is ruled out, where is the pleasure of fighting back and winning? What
the hero achieved finally is that he failed in protecting  even his dearest associate
but gained the love of his beloved after  about  ten  people got killed before him.
RGV sure expected the audience to accept and  forgive  so  much.  The  film  is
nothing but the failure of a brilliant filmmaker who forgot some very basic facts/
rules of story telling.


Result:

Purely avoidable, this will go down as the worst film of Varma, at least he can be
happy to have erased the land mark of “Aag”, now he has something bigger to
quote as his flop.

Rating:
1 out of 5, 1 entirely for camera and sound                                by        Raghu