Review of the Movie 'Ashta Chemma'

Movies don’t hold as much attraction to me as obviously, books do. I can spend hours reading a book, lost in it but the three odd hours that it takes to watch a movie sometimes turn out to be too long for me. However, last Sunday, I did not feel the time pass so quickly when I watched the movie- ‘Ashta Chemma’ which is a laugh-a-minute riot. ‘Ashta Chemma’ is produced by Rammohan who is brother of my friend Harimohan.

I rarely watch Telugu movies because of obvious reasons- they are loud, sometimes vulgar, and too melodramatic for my taste. The plots are as outlandish as the hero’s costumes in most of Telugu movies. The ‘hero’ hogs the camera because he is the one who gets to mouth almost all the dialogues, gets to sing the songs, dance, fight and do everything else except buy the ticket for you. But Ashta Chemma is unlike any Telugu I’ve seen because it is the heroine (?) who gets equal attention. In fact, to be honest I enjoyed all the scenes which had the bubbly actress, Swati, present in them.

Swati plays the role of Lavanya, an airhead of a girl obsessed with the Telugu hero ‘Mahesh Babu’ and goes ballistic when he gets married in real life. She had dreamt of marrying only him but later agrees (albeit, reluctantly in a sweet way) to marry only someone with the same name as her ‘idol’- Mahesh. That is the basic premise of the story.

A tall and lanky young neighbor ( and also friend) of hers, Anand, fed up with listening to the songs from Mahesh Babu films that Lavanya plays all day, decides to hunt for guys named Mahesh. The rest of the film is about how he finds ‘Mahesh’ alias ‘Ram Babu’ of distant Lakkavaram in a pub in Hyderabad, and how Lavanya falls in love with him, and finally ends up as his bride after many hilarious twists and turns. In the process, Anand too finds himself a bride who is none other than the sister of Mahesh/Ram Babu.

‘Ashta Chemma’, directed by Indraganti Mohan Krishna, is a rollicking comedy with funny one liners flying fast as bullets from the word go. Tanikella Bharani also plays the role of a lover boy priest with superb comic timing. The hero, Nani and Lavanya's friend played by Avasarala are absolutely natural actors considering they are almost fresh and new actors. The rest of the cast is also convincing. The music is also good and the pub song is the best and right now playing in my mind since last week.

But it is Swati who steals the film with her superb portrayal of an impish but cute and innocent girl, the sort any guy would fall for and feel protective about. I loved the scene in which she enacts how the names Mahesh and Ram Babu sound. Her expressions in those funny scenes are worth watching.

‘Ashta Chemma’ is a movie worth watching even twice. Once with family. Once with friends. Or maybe once for Swati and once for the others!!

I hope we get to see more such good films by Art Beat and Indraganti Mohan Krishna in the future.