Acharya Movie Review: Chiranjeevi Can Save A Village, But Not This Film

When heartbroken parents take their sick kids to a hospital, a doctor says that the kids have been poisoned. It’s not food poison, though. They didn’t eat anything that they shouldn’t have. The problem, the parents find out, was in the herbal drinks that were given to them. Why did the parents run to a hospital in the first place? Shouldn’t they have gone to the Ayurveda practitioners instead and enquired about the failing health of their children? I’m asking these pertinent questions to wrap my head around the amount of thinking – and processing – that has gone into writing such inane scenes.

In Acharya, the Ayurveda practitioners are revered by one and all. Why, then, are they ignored in such a crucial juncture by the people who depend on them? The answer seems to be simple: that’s how the movie is designed. This particular situation paves the way for some thugs to drive the practitioners out of their homes – and, therefore, their village. The baddies want to occupy it for selfish reasons. And, there, when all hope is lost, the hero arrives, albeit in slow motion, to save the day. Acharya (Chiranjeevi) single-handedly breaks the bones of the extras and tells the locals that he’ll protect them, come what may.

It’s a thankless job. But that’s what heroes do. In Telugu cinema, though, they go a hundred miles further. They don’t just save the good-natured folks. They save villages, rivers, forests, and traditions. They also save soil – oh, no, this isn’t a slogan for a campaign. They save soil by closing the door on millionaires who show an interest in digging up the earth. It was there in Akhanda (2021). It’s there in Acharya. Perhaps, the biggest difference between the two is that this new release is milder in comparison. Acharya isn’t invincible. He can fall, he can get hurt, he can bleed, and when he bleeds, he can see dead people.

Acharya, like Akhanda (Nandamuri Balakrishna), starts solving problems one after another as soon as he steps into the village. There’s nothing that these men cannot do. And strangely their main motive is to save temples. Devotion plays a huge part in these movies and while Akhanda endlessly gives sermons on myths, Acharya prefers to dance the nights away.

Koratala Siva brings Siddha (Ram Charan) into the film very late. Strictly speaking, the latter isn’t required here. The portions in which Siddha appears feel stretched. He fights like there’s no tomorrow. And there’s a certain kind of urgency in everything he does. This fragile quality erupts from the embers of the limited time that’s allotted to him. The love story, too, with which he’s burdened, doesn’t offer him salvation. Just when he gathers the courage to tell somebody about Neelambari (Pooja Hegde), the woman he likes, he’s called upon to perform a sacred duty – again, that means he needs to save something.

It’s indeed a challenge to come up with a script that holds enough power to generate waves for Charan and Chiranjeevi. This isn’t RRR where both protagonists are given equal importance. But, before I forget, let me just say this, “Naatu Naatu” is way cooler than “Bhale Bhale Banjara”. Ten years from now, when hashtag wars break out on Twitter, I hope Elon Musk votes for “Naatu Naatu”.

Multi-starrers are slowly crawling back into the collective conscience of Telugu cinema. And that’s great because we’ll have more things to discuss online and offline, but if this is the dish that filmmakers are preparing and serving us, it’s better to fast.

We may not grow richer, or attain moksha, but the rule of thumb states that we can’t get disappointed by the movies we don’t watch. But then, directors should be free to experiment. Siva may have missed the mark now, but he’ll come back stronger soon. I’ll also be happy if his heroes indulge in mundane activities. Why should they always save villages? Why can’t they save themselves for a change?