Extra: Ordinary Man Movie Review: Fun meta-writing sandpapers this otherwise unmemorable film

It isn't always that a film gives an insight into the emotional landscape of its writer, while they were writing the film. Were they ecstatic? Bored? Delusional? Was it their passion project or were they trying to pay their bills? After watching Extra, I could not help but feel like seasoned screenwriter Vakkantham Vamsi had a lot of fun writing it. This is an exhibitionist, extroverted kind of writing that prides on its ability to cram as many zany zingers as possible into a single film. It is a kind of writing that wears lowbrow humour on its proverbial sleeve, expecting the audience to shed their preset notions of propriety. Vamsi’s inherent glee seeping through the edifices of a formal screenplay is the ground zero of Extra’s meta energy. There is also some indulgent wordplay. A character is named Mohanty, just so that another character can say “Mohanty, moham theeyi” (Mohanty, put your face aside). Another character is named Nero, and sure enough, his name is rhymed in dialogues with hero and zero. A somewhat unheroic name like Sainath is flipped into an anti-heroic Saithan (Satan).

Director - Vakkantham Vamsi

Cast - Nithiin, Sreeleela, Rao Ramesh, Rohini, Sampath Raj, Sudev Nair, Ravi Varma

What makes these observations delightful about Vakkantham Vamsi’s writing is a) how he has already toyed with the idea of Satan & the holy Trinity in Agent, a film he has written for Surender Reddy earlier this year, and b) how the Nero in his film displays a passion for arson, much like his Roman namesake. Make no mistake, this is a writer having fun. And for what it's worth, the nerdy writer in me had some fun watching another nerdy writer at work. The writerly flairs of Extra also worked for me, when reality and fantasy brush together in the film’s second half, with a protagonist determined to turn fiction into fact locks horns with an antagonist striving to give fact the facade of myth. Vamsi winks with wordy humour another time when one character says, “Neeku Vastavikta ante ento telusa” (Do you know what reality means), only for a character to obliviously go, “Avunu deenine Telugu lo reality antaru” (Yeah this is what we call as reality in Telugu).

We are introduced to Abhinay (Nithiin) as a boy writing the name of his friend for his exam because he finds being another person more interesting than being himself. We register Abhinay’s name, and its literal significance, much later into the film. By then, we have already had a tour of his personality. It is quite endearing to watch the way Abhinay is characterised. It is not uncommon to watch a protagonist play an aspiring actor. But how often do we see a character’s choice of profession dovetail as an extension of the character’s innermost self? Vamsi's Extra is not just meta, it is also metaphysical. Abhinay's characterisation is an exercise in the compilation of optimism and resilience. He tells a friend at one point, “Don't be sad that you got a lemon instead of a laddoo. Squeeze it and make lemonade.” When he frowns, it is not because he is berated for his lowly bearings (he is a junior artist), but it is to rehearse sadness for a potential future role that may require it. His “brush-your-worries-away” attitude even gets a song (Brush vesko), which also emphasises the need for grooming in an actor's life at the same time. His penchant for pretending his way through otherwise serious situations makes him meet Likitha (Sreeleela).

What do I tell about Sreeleela in this film? Two weeks ago, she was seen in Aadikeshava. In both films, she plays a CEO. In both films, she gives a high-paying job to the boy she loves. In both films, these boys barely hold any qualifications that deem them eligible for the jobs they receive. In both films, the boys (sorry, Men. “Male leads”) stay put at their jobs in Hyderabad for five seconds before jetting off to rescue a village in Andhra from plutocratic, cookie-clutter peril. And finally, in both films, she goes to similar locations in Western Europe to shoot for dream sequences. I would not be surprised if they were the same locations. It is one thing to watch a heroine play the same character in every film, but to watch everything about these similar characters also be the same? Did the production houses of Aadikeshava and Extra conspire to save money together by sharing Sreeleela's dates? Was Sreeleela’s footage in both these films shot in a single schedule? Is this how Sreeleela manages to balance her rising career in Tollywood and MBBS studies? As far as up-and-coming actors are concerned, I am fond of Sreeleela. She has spunk. She dances like a dream. But I'm beginning to wonder if I would rather watch her in a single film which consists of dance sequences from 5 films stitched together than five separate films. Talk about redacting redundancies.

For all its quirks, Extra sells itself short with a hero who does not quite match up to the film's levels of energy on paper. Maybe Extra would have worked if the meta storytelling wasn't a mainstay modus operandi in cinema, not just in Tollywood, but also across the globe. For a film that seeks to be “extra” in its spirit, one too many “ordinary” elements derail it from happening. Maybe the amount of extraordinary elements that need to stack up to make a decent film is about as many extras as you would need to fill up a frame in a Rajamouli film. Phew. Dandalayya.