Movie: Aithe 2.0
Director: Raj Madiraju
Cast: Indraneil Sengupta, Abhishek, Neerja, Zara Shah, Mrunal
For the last three weeks, Tollywood has not had a film that is striking or moderately good. Looks like the jinx has tailed this week too. If you are thinking Aithe 2.0 is a sequel of Aithe (2003) and head to the theatre anticipating it would be as robust as the latter, then you are surely up for a major letdown. Looks like this is another setback for Raj Madiraju. It is an ostensible vengeance drama against a cybercriminal but turns into a comedy central with its frail performance and defenseless momentum.
The movie starts with a ruthless murder by a cybercriminal called Avinash Ganguly (Indraniel Sengupta), CEO of an American bank called Ambank. The scene cursorily shifts to Ameerpet where there are four unapologetically ambitious but jobless engineers – Upen, Karan, Arjun and Ejaaz, who are into ghost coding. These half-naked gang stand on the terrace and voice their dream to take over software giants like Microsoft, Oracle etc. Upen is the gang leader, Karan is called the ooruodu because he hails from a remote village, Ejaaz is a food and porn addict and Arjun is a Philomath. Upen’s girlfriend Rekha works for Ambank.
Karan comes up with an SMS banking gateway software, which is a win-win for customers and banks. All the four try for an appointment with the CEO of Ambank through Rekha. They meet the CEO and present their idea. When the CEO offers them a job, they reject and ask for a B to B deal of one million. They bag the deal, rejoice unaware of the CEO’s motives.
Esha (Zara Shah) who eventually becomes a part of the gang through Rekha arranges a makeshift place for the four to work on the project. They name the project Eurekha and is kept undisclosed.
In the meanwhile, the CEO, who is notorious for cyber crimes including a malware that can blast a building, hacks into their laptops and computers and blasts it. They get to know that Avinash is launching the software but wonder how he got to know the name of the product, which was confidential. When they head to Avinash’s office to fight it out, they get thrown out and beaten up badly. Arjun decodes how the cybercriminal drudged into their computer and learns about malware. They pledge to teach him Avinash a lesson and try to hack into Ambank.
How they manage to do it makes the second half of the story.
The double-entendre dialogues, unwanted jokes at appropriate moments was a killjoy. The lip syncing turned out to be a disaster. Although the background music was gripping, the songs were nowhere close to being catchy. Barring Indraneil, the debutant actors didn’t seep into their designated characters and it was evident in their lackluster acting. Although the plot was good, the execution falls flat. They may as well learn from short films and web series on the social media on bettering themselves cinematography and flow of narration. Bottom line: Watch to know how a movie shouldn’t be made.
purnima@newindianexpress.com
@iyer_purnima