'Extra – Ordinary Man' Movie Review
Nithiin is in search of a hit for a long time and director Vakkantham Vamsi is also aiming to bounce back after a failure like ‘Naa Peru Surya’. Both of them teamed up to make ‘Extra – Ordinary Man’. The film has a lot of noted artists including happening heroine Sreeleela and senior actor Dr. Rajasekhar. The trailer and songs generated a decent buzz as the film promises good entertainment. Let us see how the movie turned out.
Story:
Abhi (Nithiin) is a background artist who no one believes will be successful including his father. With his father hurting his leg, Abhi decides to put his acting aspirations on hold and look after the family by getting a job. While everything is going well, a director comes to narrate him a story and the actor inside him forces Abhi to leave his job to everyone’s disappointment and put all his efforts into the character. But the director decides to cut him out of the project as a bigger hero takes up his script.
Feeling dejected, Abhi gets drunk and he faces some interesting circumstances that takes him into a village near Andhra-Orissa border. What happens after that and where fate takes him in life forms the crux of the story.
Analysis:
A lot of films go bad when the director fails to mix two contrasting emotions in a seamless manner. When you mix a complete fun film that has zero logics with a serious story about villagers, things are bound to go wrong at some point. Sadly, it is what happened with ‘Extra – Ordinary Man’. Vakkantham Vamsi wrote ‘Kick 2’ which turned out to be a failure. That film also had a decent first half but things go wrong when the entertainment tries to coincide with an emotional story of villagers. There are striking similarities between both these movies.
The movie starts off quite well as Nithiin starts narrating his life story to a criminal Sampath in the forest. The initial scenes involving the hero’s introduction, his conversations with his father, his struggles as a background artist create good fun. He meets the heroine under ‘Extra Ordinary’ circumstances and both fall for each other in the next scenes leading to taking up a 4 lakh per month job in her company and the heroine’s family okaying their marriage as well. The director did not care for logic at all and it makes you scratch your head. Also, it is high time that our writers stop making heroines the CEO of a big company if all they are limited to do is romance heroes and sing songs with them for no purpose. Despite all these, the light-hearted nature keeps things ticking. Some forced comedy disturbs the flow but the movie manages to entertain you till that point.
The director finally decides to enter into the main plot after an hour and the scenes leading to the interval are well-executed. Though the ‘Maisamma’ concept is a bit overused, the director made it clear that the story is going to take a completely different route from now on. It is when things start going downhill. The second half begins on a good note as the hero and villain interactions initially are written in a clever manner. The hero asking the villain to rearrange the scenes is quite interesting. But things get way too silly when the villain’s character starts making plans. The eccentric nature of the antagonist and the hero destroying his businesses reminds us of ‘Race Gurram’ which is also written by Vakkantham Vamsi himself.
Things get way too predictable after a certain point and the out-of-place songs come as a huge hindrance. They test the patience of the audience and the unnecessary police station comedy scenes too extend the runtime. The audiences start getting impatient towards the end and the film ends as everyone expected. ‘Extra – Ordinary Man’ starts off well and entertains you till the real story begins. It falls into the routine commercial trap after that which makes it just a one-time watch.
Performances:
Nithiin needs to be appreciated for putting his 100% effort for every film. He looked handsome on the screen and his styling is on point. He knows his limitations and performs quite well in the given parameters. He dances with a lot of energy too. But he needs to take better care when it comes to script selection as these films are taking him nowhere.
Sreeleela plays the role of an eye-candy. She gets a stereotypical commercial heroine role where she is the CEO of a multi-million dollar company but falls head over heels for a jobless guy for no reason and runs around him. She looked glamorous onscreen and her dances in the mass song are a treat to watch.
Sudhev Nair as the eccentric villain does well. It is his character that irritates you but he tries his best. Rao Ramesh as the frustrated father provide some fun and even he goes overboard at places. Rohini as the mother is fine and Dr. Rajasekhar plays a special role. One expects more from an actor of his level but there is nothing special for him to do. Actors like Hyper Adhi and Brahmaji try to evoke laughter in the second half. Ajay is wasted and so is a noted actor like Sampath. The rest of the cast are strictly okay.
Technicians:
We hear the name Harris Jayaraj, we immediately remember his magical melodies and super work in the 2000s like ‘Ghajini’, ‘Gharshana’, ‘Orange’, ‘Ghatikudu’,’Vasu’, ‘Rangam’ and many more. But the music composer is out of form lately. It can be clearly seen in ‘Extra-Ordinary Man’ as none of the songs except ‘Danger Pilla’ stays with you. The soundtracks fail to get registered and his background music is quite ordinary. He tries to elevate some scenes with his scores but it is a very tough task. The cinematography is quite good as the visuals look vibrant and present the actors in a beautiful manner. The production design is decent and the production values are great. The richness can be seen in a lot of frames. The editing is okay though a few scenes could have been easily chopped off to make the film more compact.
Vakkantham Vamsi does an underwhelming job both as writer and director. Though the execution went wrong in ‘Naa Peru Surya’, one can notice that the concept of the film is quite strong and it sends a good message. His second directorial is bogged down by the below-par writing. His attempt to make fun out of every given situation backfired as everything defies logic and appear quite silly. Barring a few decent comedy scenes in the first half and some scenes during the initial portions in the second half, the director falters in the screenplay as it is very routine. It follows the commercial template to the ‘T’ which makes things very predictable and tedious after a certain point.
Verdict: ‘Extra – Ordinary Man’ – A Template Entertainer With No Logic!
