Aadarsha Kutumbam House No: 47 aka, AK47 in Telugu with English subtitles, is the kind of slip-in-slip-out star vehicle that does nobody a disservice, not the leading man Venkatesh Daggubati who goes through the motions of mirth, mayhem and melodrama with his eyes closed, even if it means stumbling over the sleeping dogs that bark so loudly, they wake up the nearest plagiarism checker.
Borrowing generously from Drishyam’s it’s-okay-to-kill-for-your-family , Aadarsha Kutumbam seems to enjoy the idea of letting Venkatesh do a Mohanlal/Devgan even if it means slaughtering all claims to originality, how does it matter? No one is in this for posterity, least of the audience.
We barely get to grasp the motions of middle-class morality and motives of the robbers and the cops…. Or to get comfortable with the screenplay’s moral chaos.
It would be no exaggeration to say the writer-director Trivikram Srinivas sweeps us along from one action piece to another, pausing long enough to let the buffoonery seep generously into the storytelling. Comedian Satya’s prolonged track gets on the nerves as it blissfully overstays its welcome .
Why must Telugu films continue to presume that audiences need comedy breaks to ease the dramatic tension of the main plot?
Another question which must be asked is, why are all criminals in Telugu mass entertainers shown to be migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh? The presiding scumbags in Aadarsha Kutumbam House No: 47 are all Biharis (from Gaya, if you please!) speaking in what seems to be Hindi and Bhojpuri with a Telugu accent. One of them, a savage killing machine named Chandan, is played by a decent actor (Udaybir Sandhu) who is at once menacing and dodgy.
Which is what the film’s presiding pathogenic mood suggests. The screenplay uses the outcasts in the plot as an aggressive weapon to allow the hero a chance to prove he is Mohanlal/Devgan from Drishyam, Ranveer Singh from Dhurandhar and Manoj Bajpayee from Family Man. Ambitious? Yes. But also cheeky.
Venkatesh is all of these heroes, and then himself, plying into the multifarious heroics with his own resident charm. The rest of the cast is serviceable, as they are not required to be anything more. The cops often end up looking ridiculous, as per the requirements of the script, which gives the protagonist enough slack to make himself appear larger than life without slipping into trite tomfoolery.
The narrative centers around Chittibabu (Venkatesh), an ordinary middle-class bank employee struggling under the weight of financial stress, including massive debts caused by family expenses and his son’s medical needs. The story takes a major turn when he loses his job, only for the family to hit the jackpot by coming into possession of a ₹100-crore winning lottery ticket.
As they transition from their small house into a palatial villa and start indulging in excessive wealth, their seemingly perfect facade begins to unravel, exposing hidden tensions and drawing the attention of lurking dangers.
While the storytelling is crammed with twists and turns, what really works is the pre-intermission home-invasion segment where Ravi Chandran’s camera does all the talking , and the climax in a speeding train which reminded by of Nikhil Bhat’s Kill.
The rest of the narrative is bogged down by dramatic deviations and comic relief. Telugu cinema desperately needs relief from comic relief.
And while we are at it, Telugu superstars need to look beyond the family haven for glory.
