‘Alludu Adhurs’: What its failure teaches Tollywood

‘Alludu Adhurs’, which hit the screens on January 14, is said to be on its way to becoming a flop. Released amid tight situations, the comedy entertainer has failed to strike a chord with the audience. 

The movie was touted to be a family entertainer and the trailer was cut to reach out to the family audience. If you leave aside the fact that Bellamkonda Sai Sreenivas doesn’t have much traction among the family audience, there was no reason to believe that it was a bad decision to release it amid heavy competition at the box-office. In fact, ‘Alludu Adhurs’ had at least a couple of factors going in its favour. It’s the only comedy in the fray this season. 

Despite the biggest advantage (genre), despite having some of the most famous comedy faces in its cast (Vennela Kishore, Chammak Chandra, Saptagiri, among others), despite the fact that its non-lead cast like Prakash Raj and Sonu Sood are popular, ‘Alludu Adhurs’ has failed the test. 

It’s now clear that the Sreenu Vaitla-meets-Santosh Srinivas school of comedy is past its sell-by date unless you have strong performances and smart comedy scenes in the film. Just a semblance of comedy is not enough. 

And if you want your male lead to satisfy the audience with his antics, you have to get the cast right. People are not ready to watch the likes of Bellamkonda behaving like a female ghost. It was gutsy on the part of the director to have the ‘Rakshasudu’ actor do such far-fetched things in this film. Only a superb talent could have pulled off the ‘Kanchana’-like episode in the movie. 

Even the family audience would like to prefer a well-made actioner to a cheap comedy/family entertainer. This Sankranthi, the contrast between ‘Krack’ and ‘Alludu Adhurs’ has proved it beyond doubt.