Rating: **
The sacred star-fan relationship went bust in the era of the social media. In the South , though, the venerated relationship persists.
So let’s presume, for the sake of presumption, that Prabhas is about to hit century and to complete his hundredth film he needs Rs 3 crores which an unknown fan anonymously deposits in the star’s bank account(how did he come to know the star’s bank details , and that too in the pre-smartphone era?Now, Prabhas wants to meet this fan and journeys to the fan’s village.
Nice,no? Except that it isn’t Prabhas but a fading star Surya Kumar, played by Upendra who is placed in this percolating plot which doesn’t know where to stop.
The basic premise in Andhra King Taluka is an interesting what-if premise. What if a fan lives his life vicariously through his adulation of a star? Director Maneesh Sharma’s Fan used Shah Rukh Khan and his doppelganger to convey the mirror-image equation between the Star and the Fan.
In Andhra King Taluka the relationship between the fading star and his devoted fan is never allowed to grow organically. Writer-director Mahesh Babu P opts for too many distractions, including a lengthy romantic track between the fan Sagar(Ram Pothineni) and Mahalaxmi the daughter of a villainish movie theatre owner(Murli Sharma).
Bhagyashri Borse plays Mahalaxmi. She is a lovely distraction, but a distraction nonetheless in a film which needed to focus on the bond between the Star and the Fan. For a major chunk of the storytelling, the fading Star vanishes while we see the buoyant Fan Sagar coochie cooing with Mahalaxmi in a movie theatre, on the beach…everywhere .
Admittedly Pothineni and Borse make a cute couple. And when Sagar decides to build a movie theatre and name it Mahalaxmi, I willynilly thought of the Taj Mahal.
While the love birds sing love songs and frolic in the rural landscape, the star Surya Kumar is presumably travelling to meet his fan and to know why the fan chose to go to such great lengths for his idol.
While the premise for the plot is eminently cinematic, the treatment is longdrawn and rusty. The director alienates the audience from the core-sentiment by pulling away constantly from the dramatic centre. The performances too are nothing to rave about,except Bhagyashri Borse who has a knack of lighting up the frames, even when the world around her is darkened by its garishness.
