There’s an old rule in comedy: if your premise is absurd, commit to it fully. Own the ridiculousness. Push it to the brink of chaos. Unfortunately, Akkada Ammayi Ikkada Abbayi doesn’t quite get the memo. It opens with the promise of silly fun and cultural caricature but quickly slides into the sin of predictability. What could’ve been a riotous satire on rural patriarchy and outsider prejudice ends up feeling like a half-hearted television skit stretched painfully across two hours of screen time.
Directors: Nitin and Bharat
Cast: Pradeep Machiraju, Deepika Pilli, Satya, Vennela Kishore, Getup Srinu, Muralidhar Goud
Pradeep Machiraju, the affable TV anchor turned actor, plays Krishna, a civil engineer who believes in one baffling principle: never help anyone. It's an idea the film sets up as quirky but then promptly forgets. Sent to the peculiar village of Bhairi Lanka to build toilets, Krishna finds himself in a warped male fantasy world where the only girl born in decades, Raja (played by Deepika Pilli), is guarded like the most precious gift by the villagers. No outsider is allowed to see her, let alone speak to her. Unsurprisingly, she falls for Krishna. And naturally, chaos ensues. Or rather, something that vaguely resembles chaos but is more like a poorly choreographed sitcom.
To be fair, the premise has potential. Rural rules, restrictive love, forbidden glances—there’s enough meat here for a madcap comedy. But the film, directed by Nitin and Bharat, treats its plot like a formality. Scenes don’t flow into each other so much as they show up one after the other, like guests at a wedding who don’t know each other. One moment, Krishna is reluctantly building toilets for the villagers; the next, he’s embroiled in a love story with a woman he barely knows.
What is disappointing the most is how little and convenient the comedy is. We get long-winded gags that don’t land, bits that drag, and a tone that seems unsure whether to go full slapstick or play itself out as punchline humour. Vennela Kishore, Satya, and Getup Srinu, the usually reliable comic bunch, are reduced to mechanical roles, trying hard to elevate jokes that feel like they belong in the pre-2010 Telugu cinema era.
The writing is where the real problem lies. It’s not just that the humour is old; it’s old and unimaginative. The outsider hero, the guarded village girl, the exaggerated villager customs, and a love story that has neither spark nor struggle. Deepika Pilli’s Raja begins with a hint of enigma but is quickly flattened into a symbol. Her goal is achieved by the interval, after which she becomes a decorative presence. And Machiraju? Charming though he is on television, his transition to film continues to feel incomplete. The actor's comic timing is serviceable, but he lacks the cinematic range to carry a film. He looks older than the role demands, especially for a romantic lead that requires youthful defiance and a puppy-eyed face. His Krishna is a character written with no real arc, introduced as a man who helps no one, yet he spends the film helping everyone and never once confronts his belief system. Sometimes, it’s good for makers to remind themselves that a hero is also a character and can be a living, breathing one if they pump some effort into it.
And yet, there is a sliver of potential buried in the film’s DNA. The idea of a village with bizarre gender politics, of a hero forced to win love through wit rather than power, could have birthed a more fun film had the directors pushed it more either in the goofiness or the love story departments. Telugu audiences are evolving; they don’t just want ‘time-pass’ cinema anymore. They want it with flavour, punch, and purpose.
In the end, Akkada Ammayi Ikkada Abbayi doesn’t disturb you—it merely underwhelms. It walks the tightrope of mediocrity without ever slipping or soaring.